Since the onset of the global financial crisis, China and the U.S. have reduced their current-account imbalances as a share of GDP to less than half their pre-crisis levels. For China, the reduction in its current-account surplus post-crisis suggests a structural change. Panel regressions for a...

We show that increased uncertainty about the size of an emerging market's external debt has a nonlinear and potentially large adverse effect on the supply of international credit offered to them. We also show that if international creditors are first- order risk averse, attaching greater weight...

This paper analyzes the international reserve-holding behavior of developing countries. It shows that political-economy considerations modify the optimal reserve level determined by efficiency criteria. A country characterized by volatile output, inelastic demand for fiscal outlays, high tax...

We use the World Bank decomposition of aggregate investment shares into their private and public components to test for the correlation between volatility and investment in a set of developing countries. We uncover a statistically significant negative correlation between various volatility...

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...

This paper examines the association between episodes of large fiscal impulses (expansions and adjustments) and sustainable development indicators (prosperity, resilience, and inclusivity). We provide country studies of Chile, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand, examining the components of...

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...

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...

Recent observations on countries like the UK that have accumulated a large fraction of inoculated individuals suggest that, although initially, vaccines have little effect on new infections they strongly reduce the share of mortality out of a given pool of infections. This paper examines the...

We trace the linkages between the episodes of fiscal expansion and consolidation in 72 advanced and emerging and developing economies. The findings suggest that fiscal expansions are positively associated with economic growth, which in turn is positively linked with better sustainable...