Recent initiatives to hold back cross-border mergers and acquisitions for ‘strategic’ reasons have made headline news. We discuss whether the initiatives may mark the start of a new protectionist era. We argue that standard globalization indicators show no such signs. However, an increasing...

The Eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) is likely to give a further boost to trade and capital flows, yet empirical evidence on the possible magnitudes is still scarce. This paper uses four different datasets to estimate the determinants of international asset holdings and trade...

Does the structure of banking markets affect macroeconomic volatility and, if yes, is this link different in low-income countries? Banking markets in low-income countries differ from those in developed market economies. Banking systems in lower-income countries are typically smaller and less...

Worker remittances constitute an increasingly important mechanism for the transfer of resources from developed to developing countries, and remittances are the second-largest source, behind foreign direct investment, of external funding for developing countries. Yet, literature on worker...