The aim of this paper is to analyze the dynamic effect of social and political instability on output. Using a panel of up to 183 countries from 1980 to 2010, the results of the paper suggest that social conflicts have a significant and negative impact on output in the short-term with the...

A widespread view holds that countries that finance themselves through foreign direct investment (FDI) and portfolio equity, rather than bonds and loans, are less prone to crises. But what determines countries' external capital structures? In a cross section of emerging markets and developing...

The quality of institutions-meaning the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, shareholder protection, and the like-has received a great deal of attention in recent years. The purposes of this paper are twofold. First, it studies the consequences of trade when institutional...

This paper examines the effects of IMF financial assistance on economic governance in developing countries, based on panel data analyses of perceived governance indicators. It uses a two-stage approach to address possible endogeneity issues. The results show that successful implementation of IMF...

Following very strong growth during the period 2000–12, emerging market economies (EMEs) experienced a slowdown in the last couple of years. This paper examines the supply-side drivers of the strong growth performance of 63 EMEs and investigates if the recent slowdown in growth is...

Effective public investment requires governments to address the "recurrent cost problem" to ensure operations and maintenance (O&M) expenditures are sufficient to sustain the flow of productive public capital services to private factors of production. Building on the model of Buffie et al...

This paper looks at the empirical record whether big infrastructure and public capital drives have succeeded in accelerating economic growth in low-income countries. It looks at big long-lasting drives in public capital spending, as these were arguably clear and exogenous policy decisions. On...

Which structural reforms affect the speed the regional convergence within a country? We found that domestic financial development, trade/current account openness, better institutional infrastructure, and selected labor market reforms facilitate regional convergence. However, these reforms have...

Abstract: Both global and regional economic linkages have strengthened substantially over the past quarter century. We employ a dynamic factor model to analyze the implications of these linkages for the evolution of global and regional business cycles. Our model allows us to assess the roles...

Sub-Saharan African countries are exposed to spillovers from global financial variables, but the impact on economic activity is more significant in more financially developed economies. Generalized impulse responses from a GVAR exercise demonstrate how the CBOE volatility index (VIX) and credit...