Global excess liquidity is sometimes believed to limit sovereign monetary policy even in large economies, including the euro area. There is much discussion about what constitutes global excess liquidity and our approach adjusts liquidity for longer-term interest rate and output effects. We find...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper reexamines the relationship between aid and domestic tax revenues using a more recent and comprehensive dataset covering 118 countries for the period 1980 - 2009. Overall, our results support earlier findings of a negative association between net Official Development Assistance (ODA)...

Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, we study the channels through which natural disaster shocks affect macroeconomic outcomes and welfare in disaster-prone countries. We solve the model using Taylor projection, a solution method that is shown to deal effectively with...

The paper finds a significant shift in the economic characteristics of civil conflicts during the1990s. Conflicts have become shorter but with more severe contractions and a stronger recovery of growth. The overall length and cost of the conflict cycle has probably declined. The stance of...

Aid is primarily given to governments whereas the engine of sustained growth is the private sector. It is therefore illusory to investigate the impact of aid on growth without considering the impact of government interventions on the private sector. The model shows how these interventions...

Economic adjustment and reform programs, including those supported by international financial institutions (IFIs), must cope with informational asymmetries and special interest politics. This presents a particularly serious issue when IFIs make structural economic reforms a condition for...

We study how 22 donors allocate their bilateral aid among 147 recipient countries over the 1970- 2004 period to investigate whether changes in the international aid architecture?at the international and country level?have led to changes in behavior. We find that after the fall of the Berlin...