Based on a dataset of 112 emerging economies and developing countries, this paper addresses two key questions regarding the accumulation of international reserves: first, has the accumulation of reserves effectively protected countries during the 2008-09 financial crisis? And second, what...

We introduce a new suite of macroeconomic models that extend and complement the Debt, Investment, and Growth (DIG) model widely used at the IMF since 2012. The new DIG-Labor models feature segmented labor markets, efficiency wages and open unemployment, and an informal non-agricultural sector....

The paper shows that international government borrowing from multilateral development banks is countercyclical while international government borrowing form private sector lenders is procyclical. The countercyclicality of official lending is mostly driven by the behavior of the World Bank...