This paper surveys the academic and policy debate on the roots of global imbalances, their role in the inception of the global crisis, and their prospects in its aftermath. The conventional view holds that global imbalances result primarily from unsustainably high demand for goods in the United...

This paper surveys the academic and policy debate on the origins of global imbalances, their prospects after the global crisis, and their policy implications. A conventional view of global imbalances considers them to primarily result from macroeconomic policies and cyclical forces that cause...

Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects...

Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects...

Since the start of the Eurozone, the pattern of debt ows to Peripheral Europe seems puzzling: they were mostly indirect and intermediated by the large countries of the euro area. This paper examines the euro currency risk and the business cycle risk as two opposing forces: while the currency...

Many developing countries are trying to expand health insurance to achieve universal coverage, yet enrolling informal sector workers and the rural population remains a challenge. A good knowledge of factors driving demand for health insurance among these groups is therefore important. The...

Most emerging markets do not borrow much internationally in their own currency, although doing that has been argued as an attractive insurance mechanism. This phenomenon, commonly labeled"the original sin", has mostly been interpreted as evidence of the countries'inability to borrow in domestic...

While there is a consensus that the 2008-2009 crisis was triggered by financial market disruptions in the United States, there is little agreement on whether the transmission of the crisis and the subsequent prolonged recession are due to credit factors or to a collapse of demand for goods and...