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Monetary policy is the macroeconomic policy that allows central banks to influence the economy. It involves managing the money supply and interest rates to address macroeconomic challenges such as inflation, consumption, growth and liquidity. Historically, for a long time, the task of monetary policy was limited to controlling the exchange rate, which in turn was fixed (at the beginning of the 20th century on the gold standard) for the purposes of promoting international trade. Eventually such a policy contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the depression, governments prioritized employment. The central banks have changed their direction based on the relationship between unemployment and inflation, known as the Phillips curve. They believed in the link between unemployment and inflation stability, which is why they decided to use monetary policy (putting money into the economy) to increase total demand and maintain low unemployment. However, this was a misguided decision that led to stagflation in the 1970s and the addition of an oil embargo in 1973. Inflation rose from 5.5% to 12.2% in 1970-1979 and peaked in 1979 at 13.3%. Over the past few decades, central banks have developed a new management technique called «inflation targeting» to control the growth of the overall price index. As part of this practice, central banks are publicizing targeted inflation rate and then, through monetary policy instruments, mainly by changing monetary policy interest rates, trying to bring factual inflation closer to the target. Given that the interest rate and the inflation rate are moving in opposite directions, the measures that the central bank should take by increasing or decreasing the interest rate are becoming more obvious and transparent. One of the biggest advantages of the inflation targeting regime is its transparency and ease of communication with the public, as the pre-determined targets allows the National Bank›s main goal to be precisely defined and form expectations on of monetary policy decisions. Since 2009, the monetary policy of the National Bank of Georgia has been inflation targeting. The inflation target is determined by the National Bank of Georgia and further approved by the Parliament. Since, 2018- 3% is medium term inflation target of National Bank of Georgia. The inflation targeting regime also has its challenges, the bigger these challenges are in developing countries. There are studies that prove that in some emerging countries, the inflation targeting regime does not work and other monetary policy regimes are more efficient. It should be noted that there are several studies on monetary policy and transmission mechanisms in Georgia. Researches made so far around the topic are based on early period data. Monetary policy in the current form with inflation targeting regime started in 2009 and in 2010 monetary policy instruments (refinancing loans, instruments) were introduced accordingly, there are no studies which cover in full the monetary policy rate, monetary policy instruments and their practical usage, path through effect on inflation and economy. It was important to analyze the current monetary policy, its effectiveness, to determine the impact of transmission mechanisms on the small open economy and business development. The study, conducted on 8 variables using VAR model, identified both significant and weak correlations of the variables outside and within the politics like GDP, inflation, refinancing rate, M3, exchange rate USD/GEL, exchange rate USD/TR and dummy factor, allowing to conclude, that through monetary policy channels and through the tools of the National Bank of Georgia, it is possible to have both direct and indirect (through inflation control) effects on both, economic development and price stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job mobility equilibrates disparities in local labour markets and influences the job-matching efficiency. We specify a matching function with regional, occupational and combined regional–occupational spillovers of unemployed and vacancies. To construct these spillovers, we use information on regional proximities and occupational similarities. Based on novel German data on new hires, the unemployed and vacancies, we find significant positive effects of all spillover terms, with the exception of the negative and significant spillovers of the unemployed in other occupations. The reverse spillover effects could be used for designing macro-oriented policies aiming to improve job matching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent economic recession in Nigeria was manifested shortly after the successful democratic-to-democratic transmission of political power in 2015, against the backdrop of continental and global economy rankings of the country as the largest in Africa, and 24th in the world as at 2014. Based on relevant variables of datasets from 1981 to 2016, this paper employed error correction mechanism on log-linear regression model to evaluate macroeconomic policies being implemented to stabilise and restore the economy on the path of sustainable growth. The variables were surrogates of fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and supply-side policies. The results showed that the respective macroeconomic policies had mixed effects, but jointly had significant growth-retarding effect on the country's economy. Therefore, the paper concludes that macroeconomic policies had heterogeneous effects, and emphasised the need for appropriate mix of macroeconomic policies to be implemented to sustain and move the economy out of the recession trap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employed the simultaneous equation model using the three-stage least squares technique to analyse the impact of money supply, government expenditure and exchange rate on industrial output; and the effect of industrial output on economic growth in Nigeria. The study used annual data covering 1981 to 2017. It was found that industrial output affects economic growth positively in Nigeria, just as exchange rate has a positive significant impact on industrial output. The study recommends that fiscal policies should be formulated with a clear-cut view to addressing the industrial needs of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes fiscal and monetary policy in a wavelet-based model under stochastic and mixed minimax robust optimal control. A state-space model is constructed after applying the Maximal Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform to U.S. quarterly real GDP data. We derive the theoretical framework for the linear–quadratic Gaussian (LQG) design and the mixed design where the disturbances in a subset of frequency ranges are stochastic, and the other disturbances are modeled by a multiple-parameter minimax worst-case robust design. We then use the model to jointly simulate optimal fiscal and monetary policy to "stress test" the policies under the worst-case design. The results show that, compared to a deterministic design, the LQG framework introduces considerable variability into aggregate investment. Under active fiscal stabilization with restricted monetary policy, the minimax structure induces more aggressive fiscal spending, slightly larger aggregate consumption, and substantially lower aggregate investment compared to the LQG design. Thus, pursuing a minimax worst-case model induces larger government deficits and stifles long-term capital accumulation. Under active monetary stabilization with restricted fiscal policy, the simulations predict that both consumption and investment will be far less in the minimax design than in the stochastic design. This research is the first to integrate robust control and dynamic game theory with wavelet decomposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The conventional macroeconomic policy framework, with its focus on maintaining macro stability is inadequate for the purpose of accelerating the structural transformation of African economies. This 'policy position' paper explores an alternative framework, wherein macroeconomic policies are applied coherently to one another and in coordination with other policies, and a resolution of the short-run trade-off between the macroeconomic policy objectives of stabilisation and development is sought in terms of a long-term development approach for enhancing both aggregate demand and supply capacity as an anchor for navigating a path towards structural transformation. After presenting a working definition of structural transformation, the paper presents the core elements of such a framework and discusses the corresponding policy agenda under five headings. Using this agenda as a benchmark, it discusses how to approach the debates on fiscal, monetary and financial policies, avoiding the limitations of standard macroeconomic literature, in order to make those policies conducive to Africa's structural transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nigeria's agricultural sector performance has remained dismal, characterized by years of inertia and unpredictability in production and marketed volume, even though it is one of the leading sector of the economy contributing about 75% to its non-oil exports. Agricultural economists have shown that there exists a macroeconomic policy - agricultural sector linkage. This study assesses the short-run and long-run linkages of macroeconomic policies with real agricultural output in Nigeria (1980:Q1 - 2014:Q4) by a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Variance Decomposition techniques. It adopts the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test for stationarity of each variable, and the Dickey-Fuller Generalised Least Square (DF-GLS) and Phillips-Perron (PP) tests for selected variable(s). However, since the ADF test is sensitive to the choice of lag order, the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) is used first to determine lag lengths for the unit root test. The Granger-causality test is employed to investigate feedbacks while also garnering crucial insights from variance decomposition. The macroeconomic variables used are the nominal money supply, interest rate, inflation rate and real exchange rate as endogenous variables. The normalised cointegration result of the VEC model showed that in the long-run, inflation and money supply are the two macroeconomic variables that are statistically significant in explaining variation in real agricultural output, with inflation having the most impact on real agricultural output while the real interest rate is not a significant determinant of real agricultural output. The Toda and Yamamoto Granger non-causality also lends credence to the estimates of the other techniques and shows that the inflation rate Granger-causes real agricultural output in Nigeria, implying that the past values of inflation could help in predicting the current value of real agricultural output. The variance decomposition test revealed that the inflation rate is the highest contributor to the forecast error variance of real agricultural output both in the short and long-run. Going by the insignificance of interest rate, the study recommends the need for policy makers to administer considerate rate of interests while also keeping the price level stable in order to raise effective demand and investment and consequently boost real agricultural output in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do ruling policy paradigms persist over time and why do they often undergo significant internal ideational changes? While the impact of Peter Hall's approach to policy paradigms on the study of governance has been immense, there is a burgeoning consensus that a “Kuhnian” understanding of paradigms makes punctuated equilibrium style shifts the only game in town. While Hall's approach can account for inter‐paradigm change with reference to exogenous shocks, it does not allow for significant ideational shifts to occur intra‐paradigm. To remedy this, we place ideational power dynamics at the heart of the study of policy paradigms. We demonstrate the general applicability of our approach by examining the evolution of British macroeconomic policy‐making since 1990. We show how key policy‐makers were able to employ their institutional and ideational power to reinterpret and redefine the dominant neoliberal understanding of the economy to match their own specific ideas and policy priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Economic Studies is the property of University of the West Indies - Mona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fiscal and monetary policies are two pillars of macroeconomic policy, for both accelerating growth and ensuring stability. Their relative roles and the nature of interface have been of great interest to both academics and policy makers. This paper presents a practitioner’s perspective of how the interface evolved in India. The pre-reform status of the interface, from 1950 to 1991, is briefly recalled. This is followed by a detailed account of the manner in which the interface was transformed during 1991-2003. The transformation was through mutual consultations between Government and RBI. This framework of interface was supplemented by unconventional measures between 2003 and 2008. It was put to test after the Global Financial Crisis—something that was experienced in other economies as well. This stressful interface between 2008 and 2015 has been replaced by an entirely new framework in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptually and empirically, inflation volatility in Indonesia is a monetary and fiscal phenomenon. This study focuses on the macroeconomic policy and public policy especially causality between two variables namely inflation and money supply in Indonesia. This study uses Indonesian macroeconomic data of inflation and money supply from the Bank of Indonesia publication during 2007.1-2017.7. Inflation is measured by the consumer price index, reflects the annual percentage change in costs of acquiring a basket of goods and services to the average consumers that may change at specified intervals. Meanwhile, money supply is measured by the currency, demand deposits, time deposits, and saving deposits. Methodically, this study uses the Granger Causality model to determine the causality between inflation and money supply. The results show that there is a one-way causality between inflation and money supply in Indonesia. These findings imply that money supply causes inflation, but not vice versa. This condition implies that the role of Indonesian Government and Bank of Indonesia were very crucial in managing and controlling macroeconomic policy and public policy. Then, analysis of money supply and inflation also related to impacting factors such as money laundering, role of banks, taxation, tax evasion, and corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By extending the time-tested reward–punishment hypothesis in economic voting, this article argues that rational voters hold incumbents accountable for the macroeconomic policies they pursue rather than purely for the economic climate that prevails under their tenure. Building on this premise, I first put forward a theory where business cycle fluctuations realign relative fiscal preferences among income groups. This theory’s implications predict that the aggregate electoral response to fiscal decisions evolves in a counter-cyclical fashion. Using quarterly measures of vote intention shares of incumbent parties in the United Kingdom, I provide time-series evidence from a set of error correction models supporting this proposition: at times of low unemployment, the electorate punishes profligate incumbents; in deteriorating labour market conditions, however, they reward expansionary policies. The immediate electoral impact is non-significant across the models, and most of the estimated effect is spread out across subsequent quarters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the mid-1990s until the 2008 financial crisis, two countries, each with different political, administrative and capitalist traditions, embarked on a radical macroeconomic policy experiment. Australia and Sweden took earlier New Public Management reforms to an ideological extreme, and pursued a profit-like goal for the public sector, in promising and delivering annual budget surpluses. From a historical institutionalist perspective, we challenge existing public choice theories and the guardian-spender framework to show how fears of crisis, party dynamics and ideological reassessments on the centre-left, and the elevation of finance and economics ministers and ministries resulted in an unlikely political and electoral consensus. Furthermore, this occurred without constitutionalised or officially strict rules, as has been the trend in other countries, but was achieved through less formal yet influential 'rules of the game' with stricter interpretations. What is even more perplexing is that Australia and Sweden do not have superior economic records to show for this experiment and experienced the same challenges as other countries during the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, they are still reluctant to definitely abandon the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

America has become a nation of homebodies. Rates of interstate mobility, by most estimates, have been falling for decades. Interstate mobility rates are particularly low and stagnant among disadvantaged groups--despite a growing connection between mobility and economic opportunity. Perhaps most importantly, mobility is declining in regions where it is needed most. Americans are not leaving places hit by economic crises, resulting in unemployment rates and low wages that linger in these areas for decades. And people are not moving to rich regions where the highest wages are available. This Article advances two central claims. First, declining interstate mobility rates create problems for federal macroeconomic policymaking. Low rates of interstate mobility make it harder for the Federal Reserve to meet both sides of its "dual mandate": ensuring both stable prices and maximum employment. Low interstate mobility rates also impair the efficacy and affordability of federal safety net programs that rely on state and local participation, and reduce wealth and growth by inhibiting agglomeration economies. While determining an optimal rate of interstate mobility is difficult, policies that unnaturally inhibit interstate moves worsen national economic problems. Second, the Article argues that governments, mostly at the state and local levels, have created a huge number of legal barriers to interstate mobility. Land-use laws and occupational licensing regimes limit entry into local and state labor markets. Different eligibility standards for public benefits, public employee pension policies, homeownership subsidies, state and local tax regimes, and even basic property law rules inhibit exit from low-opportunity states and cities. Furthermore, building codes, mobile home bans, federal location-based subsidies, legal constraints on knocking down houses, and the problematic structure of Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy all limit the capacity of failing cities to "shrink" gracefully, directly reducing exit among some populations and increasing the economic and social costs of entry limits elsewhere. Combining these two insights, the Article shows that big questions of macroeconomic policy and performance turn on the content of state and local policies usually analyzed using microeconomic tools. Many of the legal barriers to interstate mobility emerged or became stricter during the period in which interstate mobility declined. While causation is difficult to determine, public policies developed by state and local governments more interested in guaranteeing local population stability than ensuring successful macroeconomic conditions either generated or failed to stymie falling mobility rates. The Article concludes by suggesting how the federal government could address stagnation in interstate mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'turn to corporatism' in the interwar period implied an erosion of the fragile institutionalisation of legally-constituted public power due to its suspension of the legal infrastructure of society and the concomitant breakdown of the distinction between the public and private realms of society. The dual (trans-)national re-constitution of Western Europe in the years immediately after the Second World War, which the European integration process was an integrated part of, successfully remedied this development. However, over the last decades, Europe has experienced a 'turn to governance', which also implies an erosion of the distinction between the public and private realms, and increasingly challenges the normative integrity and functional capacity of law. This development has been further reinforced by the new post-crisis legal and institutional architecture of the EU as it implies the emergence of a 'dual Union' partly based upon formality and partly upon informality and an increased suspension of open-ended democratic decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a simple macro-dynamic model to rethink standard policy prescriptions. Our model includes exogenous growth, endogenous capital accumulation and debt, demand-driven production with a non-linear IS curve, a dynamic Phillips curve, and fiscal and monetary policy instruments. It has multiple steady states with different stability properties, and it is analytically tractable to a significant extent. We complete the analytical results with simulations. We find alternative growth patterns, endogenous fluctuations, and demand-driven level effects even in the long-run. For certain steady states the model shows saddle-path type instabilities, which lead us to reflect on fiscal and monetary policy standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a novel methodology to strengthen the micro-foundations of a macroeconomic assessment of EU competition policy. A unique database containing case-specific information on merger and cartel decisions is exploited to conduct macroeconomic policy simulations using a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model. The model has been extended to allow investigating the effects of EU competition policy interventions not only on standard macroeconomic variables such as GDP and employment, but also on distributional outcomes across households with different skill levels and across different types of income earners (capital owners, wage earners, and benefit recipients). The policy simulations presented include both direct and indirect (deterrent) effects of competition policy interventions. They show that competition policy has a sizeable impact on GDP growth, job creation, and the distribution of consumption across different types of households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French support for European (EC/EU)-level macroeconomic policy coordination has been driven by remarkably consistent preferences since the 1950s. With the exception of the de Gaulle decade (1958–1968), French governments have sought European-level mechanisms for balance of payments support. This article sets out to explain these remarkably stable French preferences on European-level macroeconomic policy coordination over time through a combination of an interest-based analysis referring to structural and competitive weaknesses of the French economy and an ideational explanatory analysis focused upon French Keynesian thinking on symmetrical adjustment of both deficit and surplus countries. French preferences align largely with the concept of ‘embedded liberalism’. This article also interprets a number of developments in EU-level economic governance in response to the banking and sovereign debt crises that provided a policy window for France to move European-level mechanisms and institutions towards long-held French preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Against the backdrop of the Greek three-act tragedy, we present a theoretical framework for studying Greece's recent debt and currency crisis. The model is built on two essential blocks: first, erratic macroeconomic policymaking in Greece is described using a stochastic regime-switching model; second, the euro area governments' responses to uncertain macroeconomic policies in Greece are considered. The model's mechanism and assumptions allow either for a Grexit from the euro area or, conversely, the avoidance of Greece's default against its creditors. The model also offers useful guidance to understand key drivers of the long-winded negotiations between the Greek government and the 'institutions'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economics was front and centre during the run-up to the June 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union and economists were almost unanimous that leaving would make the UK economically worse off than otherwise. Still, in the 6 months since the referendum, there has been little discernible impact on macroeconomic variables beyond a fall in the value of the pound, and the economics profession has been criticized for being overly gloomy in its predictions. This article offers some immediate reflections on the state of the economy in the run-up to the vote, on the forecasts of economists during the campaign, and on the changes to policy since. The lack of an immediate recession has been taken as evidence that the economics was wrong, but it is not evidence that leaving the EU will be economically harmless. Despite fiscal and monetary loosening most forecasters still expect growth to be slower than otherwise over the medium term. The vote and debate around it does offer some challenges for economics and we conclude with five lessons for the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies noncooperative games between a monetary authority and a macroprudential regulator whose objectives are a subset of those in the social loss function. The analysis is based on a New Keynesian model with a financial sector and a financial friction à la Gertler and Karadi (2011). When the friction affects the financing of all factors of production equally, macroprudential policy is shown to be a powerful additional tool, fully eliminating inefficiencies, regardless of the source of the shock and no matter whether the central bank and the regulator cooperate. But when trade-offs are present and policy is discretionary, the institutional arrangements become crucial. While coordination leads to higher welfare than a setting in which each authority takes the decision rule of the other as given (namely, the Nash equilibrium), our analysis shows that a noncooperative setting in which the macroprudential authority acts as a leader within the period can be superior to cooperation. Finally, our conclusions are unaffected by whether the macroprudential instrument affects funding costs or acts as a liquidity requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the present study is to increase the intelligibility of macroeconomic phenomena triggered by governmental intervention in economy by means of fiscal policies. During cyclical movements, fiscal policy can play an important role in order to help stabilise the economy. But discretionary policy usually implies implementation lags and is not automatically reversed when economic conditions change. In contrast, automatic fiscal stabilisers (SFA) ensure a prompter, and self-correcting fiscal response. The present study aims to tackle the topic of discretionary vs nondiscretionary characteristic of fiscal stabilisers (SF). In this context, the scope of the research undertaking is to launch a scientific debate over the definitions of the concepts of non-automatic fiscal stabilisers (SfnA) and SFAs. We describe how we can quantify the discretionary and non-discretionary character of the fiscal policy, by the analysis of the structure of the conventional budget balance (SBc), budget balance associated with the current GDP. In the final part of this article, we propose a quantitative equilibrium model for establishing the mathematical prerequisites for an SF to become automatic. Likewise, on the basis of the proposed mathematical model we have performed a qualitative analysis of the influence factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China is transitioning towards more inward-focussed growth, causing adverse changes in the product and financial terms of trade in the advanced economies. At the same time, international financial markets tussle between tightening forces associated with the US recovery on the one hand and unconventional monetary expansion in Europe and Japan on the other. The way these shocks interact is examined in this paper using a global macromodel with national portfolio rebalancing and asset differentiation and a representation of unconventional monetary policy. Results are found to be sensitive to the contributions of productivity and capital accumulation to China's growth. When these are offered in realistic combination, the effects are deflationary in the United States and China, militating against contractionary US monetary policy. Monetary responses in the United States and China then combine with price targeting regimes in the EU and Japan to expand liquidity globally, amplifying impacts on financial markets and the global distribution of real investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the implications of heteroscedasticity for optimal macroeconomic policy and welfare. We find that changes in the variance structure driven by exogenous processes like generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) affect welfare but not the optimal feedback rule. However, changes in the variance structure driven by state-dependent processes affect both. We also derive certainty-equivalent transformations of state-dependent volatility models that allow standard quadratic dynamic programming algorithms to be employed to study optimal policy. These results are illustrated numerically using a reduced-form model of the US economy in which changes in volatility are driven by a GARCH process and the rate of inflation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has had a five-year experience with the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) that was introduced by the European Commission in December 2011 as a response to accumulation of huge imbalances with the EU and the euro area. This paper evaluates results of the MIP and aims to examine what kind of imbalances have been revealed by the MIP, evaluate the current settings of the MIP and propose reforms that would enhance functioning and applicability of the MIP in practice. Based on results published in Alert Mechanism Reports and In-Depth Reviews and evaluation of the yearly cycle of the MIP, we propose several reforms and changes in the MIP and the scoreboard of indicators in particular. We bring forward a concept of relative thresholds that reflect economic development much better than currently applied absolute thresholds. Moreover, we recommend modification of some of the indicators involved in the MIP and introduction of maximally three flagship indicators that would receive special attention in assessment of the risk stemming from macroeconomic imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the role of macroeconomic policies (monetary, fiscal and trade policies) in the relationship between capital inflows (proxy by foreign direct investment, foreign aid and international workers' remittances) and economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1970 to 2013. The study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound co-integration technique. The study found that macroeconomic policy plays a fundamental role in the relationship between capital inflows and economic growth in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the macro-determinants of the Lithuanian housing market. The study employs the Granger causality test to assess the interdependence of a number of macro-variables and the national housing price index. Regardless of the limitations involved with this methodology, the empirical findings suggest that the Lithuanian housing market relates to growth in building activity, interest rates, inflation, and employment. Considering all of these results, the research highlights useful policy implications for property market participants. Investors and developers can employ this information to guide their investment decisions. Likewise, the government and central bank could use this updated knowledge to drive a successful macroeconomic program. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses World Bank's 2016 World Development Report, digital dividends and digital technologies. Other topics which includes economic growth, e-commerce and Chinese car companies are also discussed. Further, Council of Economic Advisers, market economy and macroeconomic policy are also discussed.

Indian companies have been playing a prominent role in the area of investment in Ethiopia. Currently some 427 Indian companies have investment licenses in Ethiopia in which more than 300 companies have very active operations. The areas involved include: agriculture including floriculture, engineering, plastics, pharmaceuticals and hotels and restaurants. Indian companies have shown a keen interest in investing in Ethiopia, identifying it as a country that is stable with sound macroeconomic policies and good governance. Ethiopia is known for its pleasant weather, kind people and abundant labor, safe place to live and work, strategically located around broader regional in the African continent and the Middle East, relatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macroeconomic stabilization of every country depends largely upon the conduct of appropriate economic policy, which comprises both fiscal and monetary policy; therefore, it is of great importance to choose the most adequate and productive ones. Many countries across the board have employed monetary policy in their attempt to ease the consequences of economic crises in the aftermath of global financial meltdown, and in the search for sustainable economic development. This paper was confined to the monetary policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina specifically, and its aim was to address the current Currency Board Regime along with the available monetary policy instruments and to determine whether an opportunity for the improvement of economic growth and consequently economic development lies within it. The importance of Central Bank was stressed out, as it represents the anchor of the monetary system. The paper comprises the analysis of the implemented CBR, its brief history, monetary policy instruments available and its consequences on the economy of B&H and based on that, the recommendations for exit-strategy which, ceteris paribus, represent a key to achieving higher levels of development. The economic indicators suggested that macroeconomic performance under CBA is not advantageous for B&H; therefore, it is thought that abandoning the arrangement either by joining the EMU or by making the Central Bank more independent is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial effects of monetisation through concession in the sector of energy in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) may well increase the level of domestic investments, production, exports, employment and general economic growth, without additional higher borrowings and loss of ownership in these strategically important industries. These new financial opportunities are necessary for faster economic development of the country, especially in the transitional period, as this development process is a great challenge in modern world economy. It requires significant commitment and coordinated efforts of the public and private sector. The case study of Terminal Kakanj Power Plant (KPP) presented in this paper show that it is possible to implement monetization of assets through concession in the energy sector in B&H. The empirical results provide evidence of positive correlations between monetisation through concession process and economic development in B&H or other transition and development countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the structural characteristics and socioeconomic effects of the neoliberal model that was implemented in Mexico at the beginning of the 1980s. Employment conditions, informal and precarious labor, and poverty generated by neoliberalism are analyzed. The article examines how the economic crisis has been dealt with through macroeconomic policies and social development by the Mexican Government. The characteristics of the public welfare system and the social policies that have been used during this neoliberal period are scrutinized. The program Oportunidades (Opportunities) as the primary national effort made by the government to combat extreme poverty is examined in detail. It has a social policy focus and is assistance-based which has yielded public financing at a high cost with limited poverty reduction. It is proposed that there are intrinsic limitations to these kinds of policy, leading to an increase in fragmented and ineffectual programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing public and political interest in effects of agricultural policy on income distribution in the agricultural sector. Most of the literature regarding redistributive effects of agricultural policy is ex-post and static in nature and many tools for an ex-ante analysis of impacts of sectoral or macroeconomic policies depict farm groups or representative farms rather than individual farms. However, the measurement of inequality is highly sensitive to the aggregation of individual data. In this paper, redistributive effects of an abolishment of different instruments of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are analysed with a tool that is able to consistently assess impacts of sectoral policy on individual farm incomes. We find that an abolishment of the main components of the CAP, direct payments and market and price policies, results in a more unequal income distribution in relative terms, but a more equal income distribution in absolute terms. Based on the latter, we conclude that if the CAP aims at a more equal income distribution within the agricultural sector, then significant scope for improving the design of respective policy instruments exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economic Annals-XXI / Ekonomìčnij Časopis-XXI is the property of Institute of Society Transformation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses macroeconomic policy. Topics discussed includes financial crisis, fiscal stimulus and fiscal austerity. Other topics which includes debt repayments, monetary policies and quantitative easing (QE) are also discussed. In addition, topics such as European Central Bank, US Federal Reserve and Bank of England are also mentioned.

Economic imbalances in euro area are a cause for serious concern. The key question is how the periphery countries will adjust. Today's debt crisis in the PIIGS countries is competitiveness and growth crisis and not merely a debt crisis. This article reviews key drivers of the euro area imbalances. A great proportion of the imbalances are due to structural lack of competitiveness, not price competitiveness. Currently, individual countries within the eurozone are seriously afflicted by both internal and external imbalances. The stylized facts and the empirical evidence suggest that both the fiscal fragility of the south, and the north-south divide of external imbalances, contribute to the ongoing eurozone crisis. We show that structural imbalances, like the ones that generate global financial crisis, might have been the underlying triggers of the euro area crisis. We find that current emphasis on fiscal austerity risks is counterproductive and stress the importance of adequate adjustment between surplus and deficit countries in the eurozone. Unless there is a change in industrial policies of periphery countries, which will require a change in the macroeconomic policies the underlying situation will not change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the change in eligibility criteria of countries to receive foreign aid. Topics discussed are stability of macroeconomic conditions and adoption of policies by the recipient countries, funding agencies include US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Department for International Development (DFID) of Great Britain, and programs include Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVl) and financial aid for secondary education in Ethiopia by DFID.

The article reports on the macroeconomic scenario of Uzbekistan and discusses about the economic growth and investments into the economy and foreign trade and prices and inflation in the country.

Copyright of Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using long-range dependence techniques we examine the order of integration of Angola’s macro variables from a fractional viewpoint. Based on a small open economy model, the series examined are money reserves, credit, money supply, lending rate, exchange rates, CPI, GDP, oil revenues and government expenditure, for the period of January 2000 to December 2013. The results suggest that the variables are nonstationary with orders of integration equal to or higher than 1 suggesting nonmean-reverting behaviour. Structural breaks reveal that the series reflect the IMF intervention in Angola in 2003 to control inflation. Policy implications are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue including the negative impacts of capital flow surges, the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies and the effect of birth weight on early childhood health.

This study determined the preferred strategies of provincial leaders when policies formulated by the central government jeopardized provincial interests, and investigated the extent to which these preferred strategies were reflected in actual actions. The theoretical preferred strategies were ascertained using rational choice institutionalism as a research approach, and an analytic framework was developed comprising three dimensions: (a) provincial government predictions of central government actions; (b) the terms of office of CPC provincial committee secretaries; and (c) the connections between CPC provincial committee secretaries and Hu Jintao. The results showed that the accuracy rate of the research framework to predict the actual actions of provinces was 54.8%. Using the proposed analytic framework can reduce prediction errors by 28.1%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Under which conditions does the open method of co-ordination match the standards for demoi-cracy? To answer this question, we need some explicit standards about demoi-cracy. In fact, open co-ordination serves three different but interrelated purposes in European Union policy: to facilitate convergence; to support learning processes; and to encourage exploration of policy innovation. By intersecting standards and purposes, we find open co-ordination is neither inherently ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ for demoi-cracy, as it depends on how it has been put into practice. Therefore, we qualify the answer considering the empirical evidence on how normative principles hit the road of implementation. In the final part of this paper, we look into the demoi-cratic effects of the Eurozone's economic and financial crisis on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present article, derived from a piece of research, provides some of the macroeconomic policies implemented in Colombia, imposed by the international financial institutions, the specific case being the International Monetary Fund and its extended agreement with Colombia, and how these have affected the development of the well-being of the population, making special emphasis on how the policies that have been imposed on Higher Education, have been affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores macroeconomic policies in Uganda in the wake of the global financial crisis and following the publication of the 2010 National Development Plan. Despite apparent changes in rhetoric regarding macroeconomic policies by the Ugandan authorities, the paper demonstrates how the commitment to conservative monetary and fiscal policies prevails. The article analyses how the persistently conservative macroeconomic policy stance has exacerbated the lack of economic transformation in the Ugandan economy. The resultant outcome has been a failure to absorb the fast-growing Ugandan labour force into productive and gainful employment. The case is therefore made for an alternative macroeconomic framework that puts public investment at its centre and which complements macroeconomic policies with suitable sector-specific and industrial policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]