This paper uses a global computable general-equilibrium framework with new detail on six Levant countries -- the Arab Republic of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Turkey -- to quantify the direct and indirect economic effects of the Syrian war and the advance of the...

Decades of conflict have contributed to high flows of internal displacement in Iraq. The incidence of these flows on the welfare of internally displaced persons is not well understood. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by investigating the link between internal displacement...

Previous sharp oil price declines have been accompanied by elevated ex post volatility. In contrast, volatility was much less elevated during the oil price crash in 2014/15. This paper provides evidence that oil prices declined in a relatively measured manner during 2014/15, with dispersion of...

This paper investigates the adverse effects of oil price volatility on economic activity and the extent to which countries can hedge against such effects by using renewable energy. By considering the Realized Volatility of oil prices, rather than following the standard approach of considering...

A global computable general equilibrium model is used to analyze the economic impacts of rising oil prices with endogenously determined availability of biofuels to mitigate those impacts. The negative effects on the global economy are comparable to those found in other studies, but the impacts...

Between 1999 and 2008, world oil prices more than quadrupled in real terms. For oil importers, vulnerability to oil price increases, defined as the share of gross domestic product spent on net oil imports, rose considerably. Considering medians, low-income countries had the highest vulnerability...

This paper examines the effect of crude oil prices on the prices of 35 internationally traded primary commodities for the 1960-2005 period. It finds that the pass-through of crude oil price changes to the overall non-energy commodity index is 0.16. At a more disaggregated level, the fertilizer...

This paper presents a comprehensive cross-country database of fiscal space, broadly defined as the availability of budgetary resources for a government to service its financial obligations. The database covers up to 200 countries over the period 1990-2016, and includes 28 indicators of fiscal...

This paper investigates how the devolution of oil windfalls affects the likelihood of political violence. It shows that transferring large shares of oil wealth can prevent conflict, while transferring small shares can trigger it. Among the different transfer schemes, fiscal transfers (to...

Subsidized or free distribution of food has been a central pillar of social protection programs in many countries. With the number of forcibly displaced persons at record levels, the question arises of whether in-kind food transfer programs are effective in mitigating the loss of welfare induced...