Macroeconomics Principles, Applications and Challenges

The first chapter in this book deals with an analysis of determinants of both net international investment positions and net costs of negative investment positions in transitive countries. It defines sustainable conditions that assume foreign investors will be prepared to continue to (re)finance negative investment positions in short and long-time periods. The sustainability conditions are derived from dynamics of both sources created through net export surplus and negative net yields paid from an international investment position. This chapter points out important differences between a position of large advanced and small transitive economies in the case of net costs of a negative net investment position. The second chapter examines the Messe-Rogoff puzzle, which demonstrates that exchange rate models cannot outperform the random walk in out-of-sample forecasting. The final chapter assesses the productivity change and efficiency of banks in Ghana.