Governments in emerging countries are increasingly issuing bonds in local currencies and foreign holdings of these bonds have been growing significantly. Motivated by these novel facts, we build a model where local (foreign) investors specialize in local (foreign) currency bonds. After paying a...

We use two alternative representations of the yield curve to test the functioning of the interest rate transmission mechanism along the yield curve based on government paper in a sample of emerging market and low-income countries. We find a robust link from shortterm policy and interbank rates...

International bond issuance by debut issuers has risen in recent years. The uptick was a result of both demand and supply factors. The search for yield and demand for portfolio diversification have resulted in demand-driven easy financing conditions. At the same time, rising financing needs for...

Following an analysis of the forces behind the global capital flows paradoxʺ observed in the era of advancing financial globalization, this paper sets out to investigate the opportunity costs of self-insurance through precautionary reserve holdings. We reject the idea of reserves as low-cost...

In this paper, we examine the role of global and domestic credit supply shocks in macroeconomic fluctuations for Emerging Markets. For this purpose, we impose a set of zero and sign restrictions within a medium-scale Bayesian Vector Auto-Regressive model. Quarterly data from South Africa and G-7...

This study investigates the legitimacy of the relatively high interest rates charged by those microfinance institutions (MFIs) which have been transformed into regulated commercial banks using information garnered from a panel of 1232 MFIs from 107 developing countries. Results show that...

There is an extensive historical dataset on real GDP per capita prepared by Angus Maddison. This dataset covers the period since 1870 with continuous annual estimates in developed countries. All time series for individual economies have a clear structural break between 1940 and 1950. The...

It is well known that movements in lending rates are asymmetric; they rise quickly and sharply, but fall slowly and gradually. Not known is the fact that the asymmetry is stronger the less developed a country's financial system is. This new fact is here documented and explained in a model with an...

We examine the role of global and domestic shocks in driving macroeconomic fluctuations for Ghana. We are able to study the impact of exogenous shocks including productivity, credit supply, and commodity price shocks. We identify the shocks with a combination of sign and recursive restrictions...