Emerging markets (EM) face their fifth consecutive year of slowing growth and a possibly longer period of sluggish performance than previously thought. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the nature of and the appropriate policy responses to the growth slowdown in EM. It reports...

Emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) have experienced an extraordinary decline in inflation since the early 1970s. After peaking in 1974 at 17.3 percent, inflation in these economies declined to 3.5 percent in 2017. Despite a checkered history of managing inflation among many EMDEs,...

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) is expected to start raising policy interest rates in the near term and thus commence a tightening cycle for the first time in nearly a decade. The taper tantrum episode of May-June 2013 is a reminder that even a long anticipated change in Fed policies can trigger...

This paper introduces a global database that contains inflation series: (i) for a wide range of inflation measures (headline, food, energy, and core consumer price inflation; producer price inflation; and gross domestic product deflator changes); (ii) at multiple frequencies (monthly, quarterly...

We analyze the evolution and drivers of inflation during the pandemic and the likely trajectory of inflation in the near-term using an event study of inflation around global recessions and a factor-augmented vector auto-regression (FAVAR) model. We report three main results. First, the decline...

Investment growth in emerging market and developing economies has slowed sharply since 2010. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the causes and implications of this slowdown and presents a menu of policy responses to improve investment growth. It reports four main results. First, the...

Global inflation has risen sharply from its lows in mid-2020, on rebounding global demand, supply bottlenecks, and soaring food and energy prices, especially since the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine. Markets expect inflation to peak in mid-2022 and then decline, but to remain elevated...

Recent energy and food price surges, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have exacerbated inflation pressuresthat are unusually high by the standards of the past two decades. High and rising inflation has prompted many emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) central banks and some...

This paper examines the drivers of fluctuations in global inflation, defined as a common factor across monthly headline consumer price index (CPI) inflation in G7 countries, over the past half-century. We estimate a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model where a wide range of shocks,...

This paper examines the global drivers of inflation in 55 countries over the 1970-2022 period. We estimate a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model for each country and assess the importance of several global (demand, supply, and oil price) and domestic shocks. We report three main...