The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in interest in financial inclusion, both from policymakers and researchers. This paper surveys the main findings from the literature, documenting the trends over time and gaps that have arisen across regions, income levels, and gender, among...

At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving...

Whereas most of the literature related to the so-called 'resource curse' tends to emphasize on institutional factors and public policies, in this research we focus on the role of the financial sector, which has been surprisingly overlooked. We find that countries that have financial systems with...

Central banks often buy or sell reserves---so called FX interventions (FXIs)---to dampen sharp exchange rate movements caused by volatile capital flows. At the same time, these interventions may entail unintended side effects. In this paper, we investigate whether FXIs incentivize firms to take...

This paper explores the relationship between remittances and financial inclusion for a sample of 187 countries over the period 2004-2015, using cross-country as well as dynamic panel GMM regressions. At low levels of remittances-to-GDP, these flows act as a substitute to formal financial...

This paper examines how financial development influences the debt dollarization of nonfinancial firms in a sample of emerging market economies (EMEs). The macroeconomic channels are identified from an optimal portfolio allocation model and assessed empirically using the accounting information of...

This paper assesses whether and how financial development triggers the occurrence of banking crises. It builds on a database that includes financial development as well as financial access, depth and efficiency for almost 100 countries. Through estimation of a dynamic logit panel model, it...

This paper studies a novel type of misallocation of credit between investments of varying liquidity. One type of investment is more liquid, id est, its return is more pledgeable, and the other is more productive. Low liquidities of both investment types imply that the allocation of credit is...

Combining balance sheet data on 900,000 firms from 48 countries with information on the adoption of macroprudential policies during 2003-2011, we find that these policies are associated with lower credit growth. These effects are especially significant for micro, small and medium enterprises...

The main objective of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) is to stimulate economic growth in participating countries through increased trade, economies of scale, knowledge and technology transfer. Using a panel data over the period 1979 to 2018, this paper examines the contribution of regional...