We review the literature on Dutch disease, and document that shocks that trigger foreign exchange inflows (such as natural resource booms, surges in foreign aid, remittances, or capital inflows) appreciate the real exchange rate, generate factor reallocation, and reduce manufacturing output and...

This paper estimates neutral real interest rate (NRIR) ranges for 10 Latin American countries that either have full-fledged inflation targeting regimes in place or have recently adopted them, using an array of methodologies commonly used in the literature. We find that NRIRs have declined in the...

We document that (i) although private investment growth in emerging markets has decelerated in recent years, it came down from cyclical highs and remains close to pre-crisis trends; and (ii) investment-to-output ratios generally remain close to or above historical averages. We show that...

The prospects of expansionary monetary policies in the advanced countries for the foreseeable future have renewed the debate over policy options to cope with large capital inflows that are, at least partly, driven by low interest rates in the financial centers. Historically, capital flow...

In the last decade, a group of Latin American countries (Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay) experienced a gradual, yet sustained decline in financial dollarization. This paper documents the stylized facts and uses a standard VAR approach to examine the drivers of both deposit and credit...

We examine how firm and country heterogeneity shape the response of corporate investment in emerging markets to changes in global interest rates and volatility. We test for the presence of (i) a financing channel originating from changes in the costs of external borrowing and (ii) a real options...

We compare the long-term output and current account effects of pension reforms that increase the retirement age with those of reforms that cut pension benefits, conditional on reforms achieving similar fiscal targets. We show the presence of a policy trade-off. Pension reforms that increase the...

We document that, historically, although stronger growth in the U.S. increases growth in emerging markets, U.S. dollar appreciation (depreciation) cycles—which are highly persistent—mitigate (amplify) the impact on real GDP growth in emerging markets. We argue that the main transmission...