Countries and international organizations working on longer-range development issues depend on long-term quantitative projections and scenario analysis. Such forecasting has become increasingly challenging, thanks to the rapid pace of globalization, technological progress, the interplay among...

Using the dating algorithm by Harding and Pagan (2002) on a quarterly database for 23 emerging market economies (EMEs) and 12 developed countries over the period 1980.Q1 - 2006.Q2, the authors proceed to characterize and compare the business cycle features of these two groups. They first find...

This paper analyzes the cyclical effects of bank capital requirements in a simple model with credit market imperfections. Lending rates are set as a premium over the cost of borrowing from the central bank, with the premium itself depending on firms’ effective collateral. Basel I- and Basel...

During the crises of the 1990s, emerging economies usually lacked the policy tools to deal with external shocks that were available to advanced economies. Worldwide turbulent episodes found most emerging economies unable to perform countercyclical policies and, in many cases, their own...

Referring to the original context of Dutch Disease, the term refers to the fears of de-industrialization that gripped the Netherlands as a result of the appreciation of the Dutch currency that followed the discovery of natural gas deposits. Expansion of petroleum exports in the 1960s not only...

Bank credit to Egypt's private sector decreased over the last decade, despite a recapitalized banking system and high rates of economic growth. Recent macro-economic turmoil has reinforced the trend. This paper explains the decrease based on credit supply and demand considerations by 1)...

Drawing on the lessons from the global financial crisis and especially from its impact on the banking systems of Eastern Europe, the paper proposes a new practical approach to macroprudential stress testing. The proposed approach incorporates: (i) macroeconomic stress scenarios generated from...

This paper discusses the theoretical arguments in favor of and against economic globalization and, with a view to ascertaining whether Latin America may be able to capture the globalization upside, examines the trends and salient features of Latin America's globalization as compared with that of...

As the recovery in high-income countries firms amid a gradual withdrawal of extraordinary monetary stimulus, developing countries can expect stronger demand for their exports as global trade regains momentum, but also rising interest rates and potentially weaker capital inflows. This paper...

This paper examines spending plans suggested by the recent literature regarding Dutch disease and examines their implications to Niger relative to its expanding mineral sector. The key to the benefits of significant mineral revenue lies with the productivity and supply responses of spending. If...