This paper examines Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the aftermath of large natural disasters between 1970 and 2008. Using an event-study approach, the paper finds that while the median increase in ODA is 18 percent compared to pre-disaster flows, the typical surge is small in relation...

Natural disasters have a statistically observable adverse impact on the macro-economy in the short-run. Not surprisingly, costlier events cause more pronounced slowdowns in production. Yet, interestingly, developing countries, and smaller economies, face much larger output declines following a...

We examine the inflation targeting (IT) experiences of emerging market economies, focusing especially on the roles of the real exchange rate and the distinction between commodity and non-commodity exporting nations. In the context of a simple empirical model, estimated with panel data for 17...

This article investigates the effects of macroeconomic policy (monetary and fiscal) on output growth during financial crises characterized by a sudden stopʺ in net capital inflows in developing and emerging market economies. We investigate 83 sudden stop crises in 77 countries over 1982-2003...

The sources of economic growth and development have been puzzling economists from the modern dawn of the profession. While the Solow-Swan neo-classical model dominated research on growth in the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s saw the emergence of growth theories that disputed, largely on theoretical...

We estimate the impact of FDI on growth using sectoral data for FDI inflows to China and Vietnam. Previous empirical studies, using either cross-country growth regressions or firm-level micro-econometric analysis, fail to reach a consensus. Our paper is the first to use sectoral FDI inflow data...

This paper studies the impact of global factors on patterns of basic research across countries and time. We rely on the records of major scientific awards, and on data dealing with global economic and historical trends. Specifically, we investigate the degree to which scale or threshold effects...

This paper uses simple regression techniques to make an initial assessment of the monetary damages caused by the January 12, 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti. Damages are estimated for a disaster with both 200,000 and 250,000 total dead and missing (i.e., the range of mortality that the...

Although financial development is good for long-term growth, not all countries pursue policies that render full financial development. This paper builds on an extensive political economy literature to construct a theoretical model showing that the intensity of opposition to financial development...