This paper documents to what extent firms from developing countries borrow short versus long term, using data on corporate bond and syndicated loan markets. Contrary to claims in the literature based on firm balance sheets, firms from developing countries borrow through bonds and syndicated...

This paper investigates the sources of capital misallocation across a group of 11 developing and developed countries. The main findings are (i) technological frictions, namely, adjustment costs and uncertainty, account for only a modest share of observed misallocation, leaving ample scope for...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has halted economic activity worldwide, hurting firms and pushing them toward bankruptcy. This paper provides a unified framework to organize the policy debate related to firm financing during the downturn, centered along four main points. First, the economic...

This paper studies how crises prompted firms to switch borrowing across markets, impacting the amount borrowed, maturity, and currency denomination at the firm and aggregate levels. Using data on worldwide debt issuance from advanced and emerging economies, the paper shows that firms shifted...

As usual in this series, Chapter 1 reviews the configuration of global risks and assesses the outstanding short term opportunities and challenges facing the LAC region. We document the significant slowdown in economic activity across the region, and explore the possibility of this being the 'new...

This paper shows new empirical regularities indicating that the structure of trade connections affects the trade-growth nexus. System generalized method of moments estimations indicate that key structural features associated with the composition of traded products and partners matter for growth....