This paper presents a novel framework to estimate the elasticity between nighttime lights and quarterly economic activity. The relationship is identified by accounting for varying degrees of measurement errors in nighttime light data across countries. The estimated elasticity is 1.55 for...

The recent plunge in oil prices has brought into question the generally accepted view that lower oil prices are good for the United States and the global economy. In this paper, using a quarterly multi-country econometric model, we first show that a fall in oil prices tends relatively quickly to...

This paper examines how financial development affects the sources of growth-productivity and investment-using a sample of 145 countries for the period 1960-2011. We employ a range of econometric approaches, focusing on the CCA and MENA countries. The analysis looks beyond financial depth to...

Why do commodity-dependent developing countries have typically lower levels of financial development than their peers? The literature has proposed many possible explanations, but it typically does not dwell on the deep mechanisms that drive such an outcome. In this paper, we argue that the main...

We estimate the effects on growth of nine fiscal reform episodes in seven high-income countries using the Synthetic Control Method. These episodes are selected using an indicator-based approach applied to the evaluation of growth-friendly fiscal reforms during 1975-2010. We find that in reform...

Thailand stands out in international comparison as a country with a high dispersion of productivity across sectors. It has especially low labor productivity in agriculture - a sector that employs a much larger share of the population than is typical for a country at Thailand's level of income....

We quantitatively investigate the macroeconomic and distributional impacts of fiscal consolidations in low-income countries (LICs) through value added tax (VAT), personal income tax (PIT), and corporate income tax (CIT). We extend the standard heterogeneous agents incomplete markets model by...

Despite significant strides in financial development over the past decades, financial dollarization, as reflected in elevated shares of foreign currency deposits and credit in the banking system, remains common in developing economies. We study the impact of financial dollarization,...

The growth-at-risk (GaR) framework links current macrofinancial conditions to the distribution of future growth. Its main strength is its ability to assess the entire distribution of future GDP growth (in contrast to point forecasts), quantify macrofinancial risks in terms of growth, and monitor...

We posit that the relationship between income inequality and economic growth ismediated by the level of equality of opportunity, which we identify with intergenerationalmobility. In economies characterized by intergenerational rigidities, an increase in incomeinequality has persistent...