Bulletin 44/45 APRIL/JUNE 1991

IN THIS DOUBLE ISSUE...

Structural Adjustment Programmes
Participants in a Paris conference jointly organized by CEPR and the OECD Development Centre assessed the interactions among trade, macroeconomic and sectoral policies, with particular emphases on the sequencing of reforms, their impact on agriculture and their implications for world trade patterns.

European Monetary Union
A CEPR joint conference with Georgetown University's Center for German and European Studies and the IMF focused on the theoretical and institutional issues raised by the Draft Statutes of the proposed European Central Bank.
Privatization

Both theoretical papers and case-studies were presented at a Milan conference on the privatization of public enterprises held jointly by CEPR and the Italian Macroeconomic Policy Group.

Regime Changes
Participants in a London workshop considered the implications of changes to policy regimes, with a particular emphasis on the learning processes used by private agents to modify their expectations following such a change.

Public Finance
Participants in a joint CEPR workshop with HM Treasury on discount rates and rates of return in the public sector discussed the economic implications of the present UK regime.

European Integration
Papers presented at a Kiel workshop of the Centre's research project on The Consequences of `1992' for International Trade discussed the detailed modelling of particular industrial sectors and simulations of effects of economic policy.

Lunchtime Meetings

Rudiger Dornbusch discussed the consequences of economic and monetary union for the management of EC countries' public debt and the Community's external exchange rate.

Gordon Hughes argued that European and American experience of local government finance suggests that whatever system emerges from present UK proposals to reform the Poll Tax will retain its main structural defects.

Colin Mayer maintained that the European Commission's current proposals to extend banking regulations to cover non-bank financial institutions risk stifling the closer integration of European financial markets.

Peter Bofinger asserted that the effectiveness of East European governments' basically well designed exchange rate policies is currently impeded by the absence of a credible peg for their currencies and a bankruptcy constraint.

David Newbery argued that in privatizing electricity industry in England and Wales the UK government failed to exploit the potential of feasible competition and is more likely to be forced into regulating the industry to avoid the high costs of duopoly.

Heather Joshi assessed the implications of long-term trends in divorce for the provision of pensions on the UK.