This chapter is structured in three parts. The first part outlines the methodological steps, involving both theoretical and empirical work, for assessing whether an observed allocation of resources across countries is efficient. The second part applies the methodology to the long-run allocation...

Emerging market corporations have significantly increased their borrowing in international markets after the global financial crisis. We show that this expansion was led by large-denomination bond issuances (bonds with face values exceeding US$300 million, and often exceeding US$500 million)....

We analyze real interest rate convergence among six industrialized countries in between 1975M1-2011M3 within a multi-country framework by means of a dynamic latent factor model. The real interest rates are decomposed into permanent and transitory factors, and country-specific components....

The business cycles of advanced economies are synchronized. Standard macro models fail to explain that fact. This paper presents a simple model of a two-country, two-traded-good, complete-financial-markets world in which country-specific productivity shocks generate business cycles that are...

The business cycles of advanced economies are synchronized. Standard macro models fail to explain that fact. This paper presents a simple model of a two-country, two-traded good, complete-financial-markets world in which country-specific productivity shocks generate business cycles that are...

The paper develops a simple model to explain Covered Interest Parity (CIP) deviations. The model allows for a time-varying country risk premium and is used to motivate a Structural Vector Auto-Regression (SVAR) approach to study the joint dynamics of the Covered Interest Differential (CID) and...

This paper presents a simple model of how a small open economy can undervalue its real exchange rate using its capital account policies. The paper presents several properties of such policies, and proposes a rule of thumb to assess their welfare cost. The model is applied to an analysis of...

The purpose of this paper is to explain the reluctance of developing countries to open up their capital market to foreigners, and the conditions inducing an emerging market economy to switch its policies. We consider an economy characterized initially by a one-sided openness to the capital...

Should South-Mediterranean economies continue their financial integration in the world economy, considering their current stance and in view of the experiences of developed economies with the global financial crisis? The economies of the North-African rim, that is Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,...

This paper studies the links between current accounts and relative price levels, finding that current account changes are associated with sizable future relative price levels effects. This is done in panel regressions of the Penn effect, adding a lagged current account/GDP and other explanatory...