All common real effective exchange rate indexes assume trade is only in final goods, despite the growing presence of global supply chains. Extending effective exchange rate indexes to include such intermediate goods can imply radically different effective exchange rate weights, depending on the...

The paper contributes to the discussions on fiscal governance in Europe. It takes stock of recent reforms, identifies areas for further progress, and discusses a menu of policy options for the medium-term. The issues covered include: (i) the growing complexity of the European framework and ways...

After impressive growth in the 2000s, China's productivity has more recently stagnated. We use firm-level data to analyze productivity and firm dynamism trends from 2003 to 2018. We document six facts that together show a decline in China's business dynamism. We show that (i) the revenue share...

This paper estimates the effect of copper prices on Chile’s growth at various time horizons. We find that a price decline is likely to have a durable (although not permanent) effect on GDP growth: while the impact is the strongest in the first 3 years after the shock, the transition towards...

The timing is ripe to pursue greater regional financial integration in Latin America given the withdrawal of some global banks from the region and the weakening of growth prospects. Important initiatives are ongoing to foster financial integration. Failure to capitalize on this would represent a...

The effect that the recent decline in the price of oil has had on growth is far from clear, with many observers at odds to explain why it does not seem to have provided a significant boost to the world economy. This paper aims to address this puzzle by providing a systematic analysis of the...

In the cross section of countries, there is a strong positive correlation between trade and income, and a negative relationship between trade and inequality. Does this reflect a causal relationship? We adopt the Frankel and Romer (1999) identification strategy, and exploit countries' exogenous...