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This article investigates the conditions which make it costly for governments to renege on institutional commitments governing monetary policy. Focusing on one such type of commitment - monetary integration - we develop and test a hypothesis which suggests that the presence of parallel international agreements plays an important role in raising the costs of exit for states which might otherwise withdraw from a monetary union. While existing political economy work on credible commitments in the area of monetary policy has had a heavy focus on countries in the European Union, we broaden the inquiry, using quantitative and qualitative evidence from the numerous African countries which have participated in monetary unions over the last forty years. Our results provide strong support for the parallel agreements hypothesis. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

On December 18, 2010, Iran increased domestic energy and agricultural prices by up to 20 times, making it the first major oil-exporting country to reduce substantially implicit energy subsidies. This paper reviews the economic and technical issues involved in the planning and early implementation of the reform, including the transfers to households and the public relations campaign that were critical to the success of the reform. It also looks at the reform from a chronological standpoint, in particular in the final phases of the preparation. The paper concludes by an overview of the main chal

The aim of this paper is to analyze the dynamic effect of social and political instability on output. Using a panel of up to 183 countries from 1980 to 2010, the results of the paper suggest that social conflicts have a significant and negative impact on output in the short-term with the magnitude of the effect being a function of the intensity of political instability. The results also show that the recovery of output over the medium-term depends on the ability of the country to implement, in the aftermath of a social instability episode, reforms aimed at improving the level of governance. Th

17. Historical Decomposition of Trade Balance Gaps18. Countries and Regions: Historical Decomposition of Country Unemployment Gaps; 19. Countries and Regions: Historical Decomposition of Country Energy-and Food-Price Gaps; 20. World: Forecast Error Variance Decomposition; 21. Countries and Regions: Forecast Error Variance Decomposition; References; Appendices; 1. Trade balance equation; 2. Output Gap Equation; 3. Equation for the current account