This paper discusses important tax policy issues facing developing countries today. It views tax policy from both the macroeconomic perspective, which focuses on broad questions such as the level and composition of tax revenue, and the microeconomic perspective, which focuses on certain design...

This paper analyses the fiscal effects of armed conflict and terrorism on low- and middle-income countries. An analysis of 22 conflict episodes shows that armed conflict is associated with lower growth and higher inflation, and has adverse effects on tax revenues and investment. It also leads to...

In theory, one of the main benefits of financial globalization is that it should allow for more efficient international risk sharing. This paper provides a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the patterns of risk sharing among different groups of countries and examines how international...

Since the early 1990s, the IMF has been advising countries to shift to the use of indirect instruments for executing monetary policy. This paper provides information about a monetary policy instruments database, maintained by the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF. We offer an...

This paper reviews some of the basic patterns of international capital flows to emerging markets in recent years, including the composition of capital flows, intraregional flow patterns, and the geographical distribution of the flows. A theoretical model that sheds new light on these observed...

This paper takes a step in empirically testing the implications of a number of theoretical models that attempt to highlight the dynamics behind currency crises. By focusing on countries with broadly disparate economic and political arrangements, the study attempts to determine the extent to...

With the public finances of many developing and emerging market countries still heavily dependent on trade tax revenues, further trade liberalization may be hindered unless they are able to develop alternative sources of revenue. While there is now a well-established body of theory and policy...

This paper analyzes and tests the influence of political instability on economic vulnerability in the context of the 1994 and 1997 crises episodes. It constructs four political variables that aim at quantifying political instability. The paper finds that for countries with weak economic...

We study whether capital flows affect the degree of credit crunch faced by a country''s manufacturing firms during the 2007-09 crisis. Examining 3823 firms in 24 emerging countries, we find that the decline in stock prices was more severe for firms that are intrinsically more dependent on...

Remittance flows appear to be falling worldwide for the first time in decades as a result of the ongoing financial turmoil. It is suspected that the drop in remittance income into developing and emerging markets will have a destabilizing effect on these economies. The paper estimates the impact...