Exchange rates have been at the center of economic debates in emerging economies. Issues related to the feasibility of flexible exchange rates, the relationship between exchange rate volatility and growth, and the role of exchange rate overvaluation in recent crises, among other, have been...

We evaluate the quartile ranking of countries during the Covid-19 pandemic using both official (i.e., confirmed) and excess mortality data. Contrasting countries' rankings using these two data sources reveal sharp and systematic differences. While higher GDP per capita is associated with a worse...

Almost all countries announced fiscal support programs once COVID-19 hit. However, there was significant diversity in the magnitude and composition of these fiscal stimulus programs. These differences were determined by myriad political, financial, social, and economic factors - these factors...

This paper deals with COVID and macroprudential regulations in emerging markets. I document the build-up of a sturdy macroprudential structure during 2009-2019, and the relaxation of regulations in 2020-2021, as part of the effort to deal with the sanitary emergency. I show that in every...

We investigate the implications of extra-normal government spending under the COVID-19 pandemic for commercial bank lending growth between 2019Q4 and 2020Q4 in a large sample of over 3000 banks from 71 countries. We control for pre-pandemic structural factors, bank characteristics and government...

In this paper I discuss the ways in which populist experiments have evolved historically. Populists are charismatic leaders that use a fiery rhetoric to pitch the interests of "the people" against those of banks, large firms, multinational companies, the IMF, and immigrants. Populists implement...

Key factors in modeling a pandemic and guiding policy-making include mortality rates associated with infections; the ability of government policies, medical systems, and society to adapt to the changing dynamics of a pandemic; and institutional and demographic characteristics affecting citizens'...

We analyze the sovereign bond issuance data of eight major emerging markets (EMs) - Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Turkey from 1970 to 2018. Our analysis suggests that (i) EM local currency bonds tend to be smaller in size, shorter in maturity, or lower in...

We define the notion of a 'de facto fiscal space' of a country as the inverse of the tax-years it would take to repay the public debt. Specifically, we measure the outstanding public debt relative to the de facto tax base, where the latter measures the realized tax collection, averaged across...

This paper evaluates the degree to which current account patterns are explained by the variables suggested by the literature, and reflects on possible future patterns. We start with panel regressions explaining the current account of 69 countries during 1981-2006. We identify an asymmetric...