While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To...

China's current account surplus has declined significantly from its peak in 2008 and the external position in 2018 was in line with medium-term fundamentals and desirable policies. While cyclical factors and expansionary credit and fiscal policies contributed, the trend decline has been largely...

We build and estimate open economy two-bloc DSGE models to study the transmission and impact of shocks in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. After accounting for country-specific fiscal and monetary sectors, we estimate their key policy and structural parameters. Our findings suggest...

The rise of global supply chains has had profound effects on individual economies and the global trading system, thereby complicating standard macroeconomic analyses. For many of the new and challenging questions brought about by this phenomenon, such as its impact on the global business cycle...

This paper studies whether bilateral international financial connection data help predict bilateral stock return comovement. It is shown that, when the United States is chosen as the benchmark, a larger U.S. portfolio investment asset position on the destination economy predicts a stronger stock...

Trade finance is the backbone of international trade for entities ranging from a small businesses to multi-national corporations. An estimated 80 percent of world trade relies on this form of finance (WTO, 2017). Despite its systemic importance and rapid growth, data availability is only...

This paper documents the steady increase in intraregional trade in sub-Saharan Africa since 1980, links this rise to important growth spillovers in the region, and identifies the main source countries and those most vulnerable to the economic conditions of others. Estimates show that in the...

This paper assesses the costs of internal trade barriers and proposes policies to improve internal trade. Estimates suggest that complete liberalization of internal trade in goods can increase GDP per capita by about 4 percent and reallocate employment towards provinces that experience large...

We compare business cycle fluctuations in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Our main results are as follows: (i) African economies stand out by their macroeconomic volatility, which is is reflected in the volatility of output and other macro variables; (ii)...

This paper applies state-of-the-art deep learning techniques to develop the first sentiment index measuring member countries' reception of IMF policy advice at the time of Article IV Consultations. This paper finds that while authorities of member countries largely agree with Fund advice, there...