Chinafs social security system sees a critical challenge with the rapidly aging population. This paper assesses the heterogeneous effects of population aging on personal budget allocation across domestic expenditure categories. With Chinafs household survey data, we break down each component of...

This paper assesses the heterogeneous effects of population aging on personal budget allocation across sectors. Using China's household survey data, we break down each household expenditure component into its constituent members. We find consistent and robust age profiles of the composition of...

This paper analyzes the regional variation of minimum wage in China. We first introduce the institutional background of China's minimum wage policy, and then describe the regional variation of the minimum wages using detailed minimum wage data since the late 1990s. Large regional variation...

This paper assembles a bank-level dataset covering the operations of 38 international banks from eight industrial countries and their subsidiaries overseas during 1995-2004, and studies the extent of diversification gains from their local operations abroad. The paper finds that international...

Using empirical analysis, complemented with case studies, this paper studies under which circumstances IMF programs manage to catalyze private capital flows into the countries concerned. While we found no catalysis in general, the situation differs very much depending on the type of capital flow...

Building upon the general consensus that macroeconomic volatility reduces economic growth since Ramey and Ramey (1995), we empirically show - for over 100 countries during the period 1978-2002 - that a moderate degree of volatility can actually be growth-enhancing while very high volatility is...

The Chinese banking system, characterized by massive government intervention, poor asset quality and low capitalization, has started a reform process based on three main pillars: (i) bank restructuring, through the cleaning-up of non-performing loans and public capital injections, particularly...

This paper assesses empirically whether global risk aversion (GRA) and some if its determinants (US economic growth and the US long term interest rates) explain developments in Latin American sovereign spreads. We find that GRA is significant and positively related to Latin American sovereign...