The Lebanon Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies overthe past six months. It also presents findings from recent World Bank work on Lebanon. It places them in a longer-term and global context, and assesses the implications of these developments and other...

"For a foreign "issuer," the benefits of cross-listing in the United States are extensively documented in the literature. However it is not clear what motivates "investors" to hold American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) rather than the underlying stock of these issuers. The authors address the...

"Studies use different conceptual and operational definitions of crises. The different crisis identifications can lead to inconsistent conclusions and policy formulation even if the same analytical framework is applied. Also, most studies focus on only a few types of crises. This narrow focus on...

Iraq is facing daunting challenges of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgency, political upheaval, and profound economic and humanitarian crises. Compounding the ISIS-related crisis, the sharp decline in global oil prices has resulted in significant decline in oil export revenues....

Economic and natural crises and shocks are unfortunately recurring events, but the better a country is prepared for such eventualities, the lesser the impact may be. In 2009, in the wake of the global economic crisis, the Government of Indonesia piloted a Crisis Monitoring and Response System...

"The author presents evidence that balance sheet effects are critical determinants of both the likelihood of a crisis and of income losses following a crisis. She tests the validity of "insurance" and "liquidity" models of currency crisis. Both models predict that the occurrence of a balance of...

"Are natural resources a blessing or a curse? Bravo-Ortega and De Gregorio present a model in which natural resources have a positive effect on the level of income and a negative effect on its growth rate. The positive and permanent effect on income implies a welfare gain. There is a growth...