BACKGROUND There is no data on depression prevalence in Croatia. The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence and psychosocial risk factors of depression in the adult population of the Croatian capital Zagreb, particularly in patients suffering from Depressive episode (F32) and Recurrent depressive disorder (F33). SUBJECTS AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was preformed on a repres...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy rules in a monetary union. The focus of the analysis is on the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the central monetary authority. When capital markets are integrated, the fiscal policy of one country will influence equilibrium wages and interest rates. Thus there are fiscal spillovers within a federation. The...

With the establishment of the euro, many commentators have drawn positive lessons from European monetary union for monetary integration in other parts of the world. This paper argues that the European experience of the 1990s is richer than a simple story of the inevitability of monetary integration. The dissolution of the Yugoslav, Czechoslovak and Soviet currency areas between 1991 and 1993 me...

Based on a classification of countries and territories according to their regime and anchor currency choice, the study considers the two major currency blocs of the present world. A nested logit regression suggests that long-term structural economic variables determine a given country’s currency bloc affiliation. The dollar bloc differs from the euro bloc in that there exists a group of countri...

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. If interest rates (country spreads) rise, debt can rapidly be...

Analyses of the political economy of exchange rate policy posit that firms and individuals in different sectors of the economy have distinct policy attitudes toward the level and stability of the exchange rate. Most such approaches hypothesize that internationally exposed firms prefer more stable currencies and that producers of tradables prefer a relatively depreciated real exchange rate. As s...

The paper explores the insights offered by Marx’s analysis of the emergence of “world money” into the workings of the international gold standard period and the post-Bretton Woods floating dollar standard. In a curious inversion of the traditional formulations drawing on Lenin, imperial hegemony in today’s context would seem to be associated with net capital imports (rather than exports) by the...

The dollarization of the domestic banking system represents a source of vulnerability for emerging market countries, and a debate has emerged over whether the exchange rate regime has an impact on the degree of dollarization. This paper argues that the regime is far less important than the literature has previously claimed. Unofficial dollarization results from a lack of faith in the domestic c...