This paper investigates the relevance of business saving for private saving and investment around the world by constructing and exploiting a broad international, unbalanced panel of 64 countries over 1990-2012. The paper shows that businesses are the main contributors to private and national...

Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital...

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...

This paper proposes a new taxonomy of Sudden Stops comprised of seven categories with definitions depending on the behavior of gross and net capital flows. The incidence of different types of Sudden Stops is tracked over time and the type of Sudden Stop related to economic performance. Sudden...

This paper studies the interplay between environmental performance and financial valuation of firms in Latin America and the Caribbean. We provide insights into how environmental considerations are integrated into financial decision-making and investor behavior by analyzing the stock market...

This paper assesses the vulnerability of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) economies to external crises. It shows that while the average LAC economy has made significant strides to reduce vulnerability to crises to its historical minimum, there is still considerable room for improvement,...

Despite an initial reversal of capital inflows, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in relatively mild impacts on net capital flows to Emerging and Developing Economies. In contrast to previous crises, gross capital inflows offset residents' outflows, resulting in relatively stable net capital flows...

Caribbean Islands are exposed to hurricanes, the damages of which are projected to intensify due to anthropogenic climate change. The region is also highly indebted. We focus on the interaction between climate change, hurricanes, and public debt. We investigate what the typical impact of...

This paper examines sectoral productivity shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, their aggregate impact, and the possible compensatory effects of improving productivity in infrastructure-related sectors. We employ the KLEMS annual dataset for a group of OECD and Latin America and the Caribbean...

This paper estimates the impact of catastrophic natural disasters on economic growth using an event study methodology on a country panel dataset from 1970 to 2019. The severity of the events is determined by the associated mortality. We find that affected economies-which, given the way natural...