This paper provides the first comprehensive documentation of how firms use domestic and international corporate bond markets. Debt issues in domestic and international markets have different characteristics, not explained by differences across firms or countries. International issues tend to be...

This paper acknowledges the fact that some countries have to borrow in foreign currencies due to the various constraints they face. Starting from this point, the author reviews approaches for trying to determine the currency structure for sovereign debt, and discusses some issues inherent in...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. It compiles a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. The main insight is that, as in...

The case study on the U.S. Treasury Direct examines the evolution of the electronic distribution systems for marketable and nonmarketable government securities, the main objectives, and the basic legal infrastructure and the preconditions enabling the system. The U.S. experience highlights that...

A diaspora bond is a debt instrument issued by a country - or potentially, a sub-sovereign entity or a private corporation - to raise financing from its overseas diaspora. Israel and India have raised $35-40 billion using these bonds. Drawing on their experiences, this paper discusses the...

Foreign investors are increasingly important participants in the local currency sovereign bond markets of developing countries. This note provides context on the overall growth of local currency sovereign debt markets in emerging markets and the growth of foreign investor participation in these...

The global financial crisis and its aftermath have triggered extraordinary policy responses in advanced countries. The impacts of these policy responses—from asset price bubbles to currency depreciations—have often been felt in the developing world. As tapering talk evolves into actual...

This paper examines the micro and macro correlates of aid project outcomes in a sample of 3,821 World Bank projects and 1,342 Asian Development Bank projects. Project outcomes vary much more within countries than between countries: country-level characteristics explain only 10–25 percent of...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, interest in systemic risk has surged among academics and policy makers. The mitigation of systemic risk is now widely accepted as the fundamental underlying concept for the design of the post-crisis regulatory agenda. Effective mitigation requires...

This study uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze various policy scenarios for a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum fuels and kerosene in Ethiopia. The carbon tax starts at $5 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2018 and rises to $30 per ton in 2030. Different...