Sound monetary and fiscal policies have contributed to making the current U.S. economic expansion the longest on record. Executive Directors welcomed these developments, and congratulated the U.S. authorities on the adoption of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which represents a much needed overhaul...

The size and sources of international spillovers of activity remain subject to significant uncertainty. This Selected Issues paper uses a new approach to differentiating these effects using disturbances to a diverse group of small industrial countries as a proxy for global shocks. The results...

This 2007 Article IV Consultation highlights that following an extended boom led by strong domestic demand, the slowdown in the United States has largely reflected a drag from residential investment as the housing market has weakened substantially. Unexpected weakness in business investment and...

This Selected Issues paper on the United States examines the effect of the structure of the mortgage market on real housing activity and housing prices. The market-based financial structure has reduced the volatility of mortgage lending. Changes in the structure of the mortgage market have...

1. Introduction -- 2. Liaoning: The Smothering Effects of Local Protectionism -- 3. Slow, Steady, Cheap, and Painless: Making Sense of China’s Bad Loan Strategy -- 4. Who Loses from Restricting Chinese Student Visas? -- 5. From Windfalls to Pitfalls: Qualcomm’s China Conundrum -- 6. In Xi We...

Climate scientists have determined that we must act now to prevent an irreversible and catastrophic climatic tipping point, beyond which neither our own nor many other species can be assumed likely to survive. On the way to that bleak ending, moreover, extreme socio-economic injustice and...

The gig economy can be viewed as the fuel that lit the fire of change in economies throughout the world. Flexible work grew out of a cultural shift in how we defined how we wished to work. The gig economy also grew out of a need, a need to earn more to keep pace with the inflation that nullified...

The United States patent system has become sand rather than lubricant in the wheels of American progress. Such is the premise behind this provocative and timely book by two of the nation's leading experts on patents and economic innovation. Innovation and Its Discontents tells the story of how...