This paper investigates whether leading indicators can help explain the cross-country incidence of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Rather than looking for indicators with specific relevance to the current crisis, the selection of variables is driven by an extensive review of more than eighty...

Seven possible nominal variables are considered as candidates to be the anchor or target for monetary policy. The context is countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which tend to be price takers on world markets, to produce commodity exports subject to volatile terms of trade, and to...

This paper investigates whether leading indicators can help explain the cross-country incidence of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Rather than looking for indicators with specific relevance to the current crisis, the selection of variables is driven by an extensive review of more than eighty...

In the past, industrial countries have tended to pursue countercyclical or, at worst, acyclical fiscal policy. In sharp contrast, emerging and developing countries have followed procyclical fiscal policy, thus exacerbating the underlying business cycle. We show that, over the last decade, about...

Many studies have replicated the finding that the forward rate is a biased predictor of the future change in the spot exchange rate. Usually the forward discount actually points in the wrong direction. But, at least until recently, those studies applied only to advanced economies and major...

A new climate change treaty must plug three gaps: the absence of emission targets extending far into the future, the absence of participation by the United States, China, and other developing countries, and the absence of reason to expect compliance. To be politically acceptable, it must obey...

What explains the economic success of Mauritius, a top performer among African countries? How did it develop a manufacturing sector and how has it managed to respond well to new external shocks? This paper draws on the history of the island, the writings of foreign economists, the ideas of...

In the past, various great powers have taken the stage as models of economic and social development. Examples such as Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States have had their time in the spotlight that has come and gone as flaws were exposed; and other countries have learned...

I approach the state of global currency issues by identifying eight concepts that I see as having recently “peaked†and eight more that I see as currently rising in relevance. Those that I see as having already seen their best days are: the G-7, global savings glut, corners hypothesis,...

The report surveys the state of our knowledge regarding the effects of trade on the environment. A central question is whether globalization helps or hurts in achieving the best tradeoff between environmental and economic goals. Do international trade and investment allow countries to achieve...