In both the UK and USA economies the budget deficit remains a central weakness. In the light of this problem this book presents a consistent economic framework for analysing the effects and implications of large bond-financed deficits.

Bolivia has achieved noteworthy success over the past 15 years in raising incomes, reducing poverty, and maintaining macroeconomic stability by deploying commodity revenues to finance transfers, public investment, and state-led development, using an exchange rate peg as a policy anchor. However, with the end of the commodity boom in 2014, fiscal deficits have grown and reserves have fallen. One route to restoring long-run sustainability would be to combine fiscal consolidation with a switch to a floating exchange rate. However, a preference for maintaining the peg could be accommodated with adjustments elsewhere in the policy framework. Employing a detailed dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of the Bolivian economy, this study assesses the long-run sustainability and relative benefits of alternative policy combinations, and calculates optimal adjustment paths for the transition from the present situation to the steady state. It concludes that continued adherence to a fixed-rate regime, while not optimal, is feasible, if supported by a larger fiscal effort.

Traditionally the choice of exchange rate regime has been seen as a second-best policy choice, which can be directed toward mitigating the distortionary effects of price or information rigidities. In this paradigm the optimal degree of exchange rate flexibility is found to depend of the source and nature of shocks hitting an economy. More recent literature views the exchange rate as a widely and frequently seen manifestation of government policy with careful exchange-rate management emerging as a tool that can enhance shaky policy credibility.

This book explores the role of law and regulation in sustaining financial markets in both developed and developing countries, particularly the European Union, United States and China. The central argument of this book is that law matters for the operation of financial markets, which, in turn, significantly influences the performance of firms, industries, and economies. The Role of Law and Regulation in Sustaining Financial Markets is divided into four parts. Part one addresses the connection between law, financial development, and economic growth. Part two deals with the role of financial regulation, which can be used to correct market failures, such as negative externalities, information asymmetries, and monopolies. Part three focuses on the design, functioning, and performance of different financial instruments. Part four examines the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility. This book contributes to the ‘law and finance’ literature by studying certain conventional issues, such as the relationship between finance and economic growth, and the effects of regulatory quality on financial development, from new perspectives and/or with new evidence, data, and cases. It also explores novel topics, such as project finance contracts, insurance and climate change, the shadow banking system, that have been overlooked in current literature. This book is meaningful not only for the EU and the US, which have suffered considerably from the financial crisis of 2008, but also for China, which is struggling to build a sound institutional infrastructure to govern its increasingly complicated financial system. By comparing the regulatory philosophies and practices of the EU, the US and China, this book will help the reader to understand the diverse nature of the global ‘law and finance’ nexus and avoid succumbing to the myth of "one size fits all".

This paper reviews and analyzes how Morocco overcame the economic and financial crisis it confronted at the beginning of the 1980s. It highlights the challenges that still confront the Moroccan economy and the lessons that can be drawn from Morocco's adjustment experience.