This paper provides an overview of global solid waste generation, its environmental costs, and fiscal instruments that can be used to encourage waste reduction and finance proper disposal. Countries-especially island nations--struggle to manage an ever-increasing volume of solid waste,...

The shutdown in economic activity due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis has resulted in a short-term decline in global carbon emissions, but the long-term impact of the pandemic on the transition to a low-carbon economy is uncertain. Looking at previous episodes of financial and...

Green debt markets are rapidly growing while product design and standards are evolving. Many policymakers and investors view green debt as an important component in the policy mix to achieve the transition to a low carbon economy and ensure the pricing of climate risks. Our analysis contributes...

This paper examines the reasons why corruption and policy distortions tend to exhibit a high degree of persistence in certain regimes. We identify circumstances under which a firm seeks to evade regulations by (1) bribing of local inspectors, and (2) lobbying high-level government politicians to...

Using a sample of 97 countries spanning the period 1980?2008, we estimate that financial crises have a large negative impact on unemployment in the short term, but that this effect rapidly disappears in the medium term in countries with flexible labor market institutions, whereas the impact of...

This paper examines the empirical link between fiscal policy and the current account focusing on microstates defined as countries with a population of less than 2 million between 1970 and 2009. The paper employs panel regression and panel vector autoregression (VAR) on 155 countries of which 42...