Given no generally accepted framework for financial stability, policymakers in developing Asia need to manage, not avoid, financial deepening. This paper supports Asian policymakers' judgement through analysis of the recent events in the United States and Europe and of earlier crisis episodes,...

Government intervention to stabilise financial systems in times of banking crises ultimately involves political decisions. This paper sheds light on how certain political variables influence policy choices during banking crises and hence have an impact on fiscal outlays. We employ cross-country...

Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence, rural incomes will change, and with them the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 116 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze...

This synthesis paper brings together the research findings from four papers prepared by the Uganda team as a part of the UNRISD Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilization for Social Development project, which addresses three broad themes: bargaining and contestation, key relations, and...

In this paper we document the stylized facts about the relationship between international oil price swings, sovereign risk and macroeconomic performance of oil-exporting economies. We show that even though being a bigger oil producer decreases sovereign risk–because it increases a...

This paper assesses the vulnerability of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) economies to external crises. It shows that while the average LAC economy has made significant strides to reduce vulnerability to crises to its historical minimum, there is still considerable room for improvement,...