We document the evolution of poverty and inequality across Indian states during the recent period of rapid growth (2004-09), and examine the role of growth and distribution in reducing poverty. Robust economic growth has been a major driver of poverty reduction and inclusiveness in India. We...

Indian food and fuel inflation has remained high for several years, and second-round effects on core inflation are estimated to be large. This paper estimates the size of second-round effects using an estimated reduced-form general equilibrium model of the Indian economy, which incorporates...

This paper documents the recent slowdown in investment in India and explores its underlying causes. The sharp investment deceleration has sparked an intense debate about the role of interest rates, as well as business confidence and economic policy uncertainty. Our results suggest that while...

This paper examines the roles of U.S. financial innovation, financial globalization, and the savings glut hypothesis in explaining the rise in U.S. external debt, first in a portfolio balance model, and then empirically. Perhaps surprisingly, financial deepening and falling home bias in...

In this paper, we derive two new measures of international relative prices for Norway. Developments in these new measures follow rather closely movements in the CPI-based real effective exchange rate through the 1990s, but diverge after 2000—suggesting that the costs of living in Norway...

This paper examines the roles of U.S. financial innovation, financial globalization, and the savings glut hypothesis in explaining the rise in U.S. external debt, first in a portfolio balance model, and then empirically. Perhaps surprisingly, financial deepening and falling home bias in...

This paper sheds light on the attractiveness of U.S. assets by studying dollar risk premiums, calculated using Consensus exchange rate forecasts, and linking them to bilateral capital flows. The paper finds that the presence of negative dollar risk premiums (i.e. expectations of a dollar...

In this paper we present various techniques to estimate Sri Lanka’s potential output and output gap, including statistical and model-based approaches. Compared to conventional statistical filters that rely exclusively on information in a single series, the model-based approaches allow...

Investigations of micro- and low-magnitude earthquakes in the Kangra-Chamba region of the NW Himalaya were performed to evaluate the relationship between earthquake source, seismicity, stress drop, tectonics, and structure. The seismic events were recorded by a dense local network of 21...

Horizontal surface visibility range, one of the simplest measures of local atmospheric pollution, is critical for aviation, surface transport besides long-term impact on human health and climate. Long-term observations from multiple stations (including airports) across the world show...