This paper investigates the impact of infectious diseases on the evolution of sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads for a panel of 77 advanced and developing countries. Using annual data over the 2004-2020 period, we find that infectious-disease outbreaks have no discernible effect on CDS...

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...

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects and sequencing of (LMRs) and product (PMRs) market reforms in Morocco. It finds that introducing LMRs and PMRs simultaneously would add about 2.5 percentage points (pp) of GDP growth and reduce unemployment by about 2.2 pp after five years. If...

The existing literature suggests a number of alternative methods to test for the presence of contagion during financial market crises. This paper reviews those methods and shows how they are related in a unified framework. A number of extensions are also suggested that allow for multivariate...

This paper discusses the possible causes and consequences of corruption. It provides a synthetic review of recent studies that analyze this phenomenon empirically. In addition, it presents further results on the effects of corruption on growth and investment, and new cross-country evidence on...

We analyze the medium-term macroeconomic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lock-down measures on low-income countries. We focus on the impact over the medium-run of the degradation of health and human capital caused by the pandemic and its aftermath, exploring the trade-offs between...

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...

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...

Over the past year, euro area sovereign spreads have exhibited an unprecedented degree of volatility. This paper explores how much of these large movements reflected shifts in (i) global risk aversion (ii) country-specific risks, directly from worsening fundamentals, or indirectly from...