Covid-19 has exacerbated economic and social vulnerabilities across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). There is a risk that growth could be lower for longer, with a setback to development. Post-pandemic reforms thus become even more important, especially with constrained scope for fiscal and monetary...

This paper explores the macroeconomic impact of social unrest, using a novel index based on news reports. The findings are threefold. First, unrest has an adverse effect on economic activity, with GDP remaining on average 0.2 percentage points below the pre-shock baseline six quarters after a...

Is there a one-size-fits-all approach to inclusive growth? We look at four key case studies across advanced and emerging markets-the Nordics, India, Brazil, and Egypt-to try to answer this question. We highlight qualitatively in these countries the key components of inclusive growth models,...

The paper examines the determinants of employment growth, drawing on data available across a sample of Caribbean countries. To that end, the paper analyzes estimates of the employment-output elasticity and the response of employment growth to major sources of labor market determinants, in the...

This paper analyzes the unprecedented resilience of Latin American countries to the global financial crisis. It argues that sound macroeconomic conditions, which allowed an unusual monetary and fiscal expansion, exchange rate flexibility, a strong and well--regulated financial system, high level...

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as 'hysteresis,' argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and...

In an interconnected world, national economic policies regularly lead to large international spillover effects, which frequently trigger calls for international policy cooperation. However, the premise of successful cooperation is that there is a Pareto inefficiency, id est if there is scope to...

While China's growth gathered momentum in 2017, rebalancing was uneven and decelerated along many dimensions reflecting the temporary factors behind the growth pickup. Going forward, rebalancing is expected to proceed as these temporary factors recede, but elevated income inequality and leverage...

Based on the experience of the Bank of Albania, the paper proposes a framework to estimate the interest rate lower bound in small, open, and euroized economies. The paper introduces a stylized monitoring tool to assess the unintended consequences of low policy rates. The paper is the first...