This paper studies the potential for the export sector to play a more important role in promoting growth in Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic (CAPDR) through deeper intra-regional and global trade integration. CAPDR countries have enacted many free trade agreements and other...

In contrast to expectations, remittances to Central America and the Caribbean (CAC) surprised positively during 2020 and 2021. This study revisits the key macro indicators driving remittances, looks at the heterogeneous impacts of the global financial crisis (GFC) and COVID shocks, then uses...

Potential Output is a key factor for debt sustaintability analysis and for developing strategies for growth, but unfortunately it is an unobservable variable. Using three methodologies (production function, switching, and state-space), this paper computes potential output for CAPDR countries...

This paper investigates factors that predict variation in digital and non-digital remittance fees over time and across countries, exploring differences between CAPDR and other regions. The paper fills a void in the literature on how country- and corridor-specific factors relate to remittance...

Central America is one of the world's most vulnerable regions to extreme climate events. The literature estimates the macroeconomic effects of climate events mainly using annual data, which might underestimate the true effects as these extreme events tend to be short-lived and generate...

This paper shows that donors that maximize relative aid impact spread their budgets across many recipient countries in a unique Nash equilibrium, explaining aid fragmentation. This equilibrium may be inefficient even without fixed costs, and the inefficiency increases in the equality of donors'...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics that emphasizes the role played by expectations concerning future trade flows and returns. I use the model to estimate the drivers of the U.S. external position and capital flows between 1973 and 2008. The...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. THE FINANCIAL CRISES OF THE 1990S WERE DIFFERENT FROM THOSE OF THE 1980S -- III. DEBT CRISES OF THE 1990S: A TAXONOMY -- IV. CONFIDENCE CRISIS AND CRISIS OF THE FUNDAMENTALS: A THEORETICAL BENCHMARK -- V. OUR POLICY IMPLICATIONS: COLLECTIVE ACTION...

Despite substantial debt relief to HIPC Initiative completion point countries, long-term debt sustainability remains a challenge. This paper examines a number of structural factors affecting external debt sustainability. It shows that in HIPC completion point countries (i) the export base...