Although Brazil has become one of the largest economies in the world, it remains among the most closed economies as measured by the share of exports and imports in gross domestic product. This feature cannot be explained simply by the size of Brazil's economy. Rather, it is due to an economic...

The paper reviews the so-called "third generation" models of currency crises. After presenting a few selected models from the literature, the paper discusses whether they contribute to the understanding of the recent currency crises in Latin America - in particular the Mexican crisis of 1994 and...

Since the mid-1990s, Brazil has struggled, with limited success, to reform its intergovernmental financing arrangements. Over the last few years, Brazil’s growth has significantly decelerated. Accompanying this slowdown, a change in commentary on Brazil’s economic future has emerged, and is...

Blended concessional finance (BF), the use of catalytic capital from public or philanthropic sources to increase private sector investment—is becoming an important instrument to support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Together with other Development Finance Institutions (DFIs),...

Demographic change can be a positive contributor to development at any stage of demographic transition. This paper revisits the literature on the determinants and economic impacts of demographic change, and presents a new global typology that classifies countries into four categories based on...

With 2015 marking the transition from the Millennium to the Sustainable Development Goals, the international community can celebrate many development successes since 2000. Three key challenges stand out: the depth of remaining poverty, the unevenness in shared prosperity, and the persistent...

This paper addresses two complications arising from the use of collateral requirements in debt contracts between wealth-constrained entrepreneurs and banks. First, costly asset liquidation is found to enhance the susceptibility of debt finance to interest rate volatility. Second, aggregate...

This paper singles out the key short-term risks and medium-term challenges related to finance and convergence in emerging Europe. With the help of a general equilibrium theoretical framework, the paper identifies pragmatic directions for policymakers. While the quot;speed limitsquot; to capital...