Although emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) weathered the global recession a decade ago relatively well, they now appear less well placed to cope with the substantial downside risks facing the global economy. In many EMDEs, the room for monetary and fiscal policies to respond to...

We provide empirical evidence of the causal effects of changes in financial intermediaries' net worth on the aggregate economy. Our strategy identifies financial shocks as high-frequency changes in the market value of intermediaries' net worth in a narrow window around their earnings...

We propose a macroeconomic model in which adverse selection in investment drives the amplification of macroeconomic fluctuations, in line with prominent roles played by the credit crunch and collapse of the asset-backed security market in the financial crisis. Endogenous lending standards emerge...

This report discusses the economic impact of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis across industries, and countries. It also provides estimates of the potential global economic costs of COVID-19, and the GDP growth of different countries. The current draft includes estimates for 30 countries, under...

We study how the macroeconomic dynamics following credit cycles vary with business bankruptcy institutions. Using data on bankruptcy efficiency and business credit around the world, we document that business credit booms are followed by severe declines in output, investment, and consumption in...

This paper compares the depth of the recent crisis and the Great Depression. We use a new data set to compare the drop in activity in the industrialized countries for seven activity indicators. This is done under the assumption that the recent crisis leveled off in mid-2009 for production and...

The prevailing narrative about the Great Recession is that it was caused by a financial crisis. This paper refutes that explanation and offers an alternative, namely that issuance of bad government debt played a key role in escalating a regular recession to an economic crisis

Can shifts in the credit supply generate a boom-bust cycle similar to the one observed in the US around 2008? To answer this question, we develop a general equilibrium model that combines a rich heterogeneous agent overlapping-generations structure of households who make housing tenure decisions...

A frequently neglected aspect of financial booms and busts - financial cycles - is their impact on fiscal positions. And yet, the latest financial crisis and history show that these cycles can wreak havoc with public finances. After reviewing the impact of financial cycles on fiscal positions,...

This paper compares the depth of the recent crisis and the Great Depression. We use a new data set to compare the drop in activity in the industrialized countries for seven activity indicators. This is done under the assumption that the recent crisis leveled off in mid-2009 for production and...