Given the large size of aggregate remittance flows (billions of dollars annually), they should be expected to have significant macroeconomic effects on the economies that receive them. This paper directly addresses the two main issues of interest to policymakers with regard to remittances--how...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the surprising strength of remittances in Bangladesh and other countries in South Asia and the Philippines in 2009. The empirical analysis suggests that the continued strong growth of remittances in these countries is related to the resilience of non-oil GDP...

This paper uses an overlapping generations model with international labor mobility and a politically responsive fiscal policy to examine aging in developed and developing regions. Migrant workers change the political structure composed of young and elderly voters in both labor-receiving and...

The paper investigates the determinants of foreign currency borrowing by the private sector in the new member states of the European Union. We find that striking differences in patterns of foreign currency borrowing between countries are explained by the loan-to-deposit ratios, openness, and the...

This paper investigates the role of structural reforms -financial reforms, trade liberalization, and privatization- as determinants of FDI inflows based on newly constructed dataset on structural reforms for 19 Latin American and 25 Eastern European countries between 1989 and 2004. Our main...

The aim of this paper is to construct a comprehensive and consistent dataset to analyze the potential risks from foreign bank lending, for both the creditor and borrower countries of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (CESE). We develop a picture of bank claims on 13 CESE countries by...

The paper discusses the interrelationships between payments system reform and monetary policy implementation in selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The reforms in the payments system are viewed as closely interrelated with the development of money and foreign exchange markets and...