The literature on the benefits and costs of financial globalization for developing countries has exploded in recent years, but along many disparate channels and with a variety of apparently conflicting results. For instance, there is still little robust evidence of the growth benefits of broad...

We review the large literature on various economic policies that could help developing economies effectively manage the process of financial globalization. Our central findings indicate that policies promoting financial sector development, institutional quality and trade openness appear to help...

The literature on capital controls has (at least) four very serious apples-to-oranges problems: (i) There is no unified theoretical framework to analyze the macroeconomic consequences of controls; (ii) there is significant heterogeneity across countries and time in the control measures...

Since the invention of money, pressure to finance government debt and deficits, directly or indirectly, has been the single most important driver of inflation. It is not at all clear, however, that improved fiscal policy has been the main driver of the recent disinflation. ; Whatever the...

This paper describes the evolution of ideas to apply bankruptcy reorganization principles to sovereign debt crises. Our focus is on policy proposals between the late 1970s and Anne Krueger's (2001) proposed 'Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism," with brief reference to the economics...

This paper offers empirical evidence that a country's choice of exchange rate regime can have a signifficant impact on its medium-term rate of productivity growth. Moreover, the impact depends critically on the country's level of financial development, its degree of market regulation, and its...

This paper demonstrates that “commodity currency” exchange rates have remarkably robust power in predicting future global commodity prices, both in-sample and out-of-sample. A critical element of our in-sample approach is to allow for structural breaks, endemic to empirical exchange rate...

Volatile and rising agricultural prices place significant strain on the global fight against poverty. An accurate reading of future food price movements would thus be an invaluable budgetary planning tool for government agencies and food aid programs aimed at alleviating hunger. Using the...

This paper describes the evolution of ideas to apply bankruptcy reorganization principles to sovereign debt crises. Our focus is on policy proposals between the late 1970s and Anne Krueger's (2001) proposed 'Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism," with brief reference to the economics...