One of the most striking features of the world economy is that wealthy countries are clustered together. This paper theoretically and empirically explains a mechanism for this clustering by extending the Acemoglu and Ventura model so that it takes real geography into account. Countries close to...

In this paper we provide an overview of the growth model in China and its prospects, taking a medium-run to long-run perspective. Our main conclusions are as follows. First, the still prevailing producer-biased model of managed capitalism in China tends to engender, as an inherent byproduct,...

In 2007, countries in the euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits and low spreads. Then the financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recession, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010, they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and, surprisingly,...

This paper analyzes the international monetary transmission mechanism in economies with portfolio rigidities. In a general equilibrium monetary model with distribution costs in trade, I analyze the reaction of the economy to technology, money supply and government spending shocks, and the...

The main contribution of this paper is to jointly estimate the effects of financial development and inflation on growth. We aim to exploit both the cross-section and the time-series dimension of the data on inflation, growth and some banking and stock market indicators over the period 1961-1993...

The removal of barriers to trade and mobility is usually promoted as it allows for greater division of labor and, thereby, for improved economic welfare. Recent theory, however, suggests that the integration of markets might have serious consequences for the regional allocation of economic...

The International Investment Position records the value of foreign assets and liabilities of an economy in a given date. Its evolution is determined by the financial transactions of the Balance of Payments, which affects the volume of assets and liabilities, by differences in the valuation of...

Despite the general belief among economists on the growth-enhancing role of international trade and significant trade opening over the past 25 years, the growth performance of many developing economies, especially of those in Latin America and Africa, has been disappointing. While this poor...

Given that savings and productivity follow a hump shaped profile with respect to age and given that demographic profiles vary across countries, population age structure may be linked to differences in levels of economic development. In this paper we measure the importance of age structure in...

This paper estimates the response of per capita GDP growth to changes in the proportion of mature workers across countries. We define and estimate the effect of demographic maturity in two ways. First, a growing cohort of working age persons (15-64) is found to have a large positive effect on...