This paper explores how the sudden stop in capital flows to emerging market economies associated with the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, the substantial policy responses that were needed to alleviate it, and the lessons we might draw from this episode. We identify four areas where further work...

There is substantial evidence that openness to trade raises economic growth and boosts living standards. But trade liberalisation has been asymmetric, focused on goods rather than services trade. The decline in goods trade barriers may have favoured countries specialising in goods, like China,...

While the idea of governments issuing financial instruments whose repayments are indexed to gross domestic product (GDP) is not new, the current global backdrop of high sovereign debt coupled with low interest rates and weak and uncertain nominal growth prospects suggests the case for doing so...

Over the recent decades researchers in academia and central banks have developed early warning systems (EWS) designed to warn policy makers of potential future economic and financial crises. These EWS are based on diverse approaches and empirical models. In this paper we compare the performance...

We identify a set of “rules of thumb” that characterise economic, financial and structural conditions preceding the onset of banking and currency crises in 36 advanced economies over 1970-2010. We use the Classification and Regression Tree methodology (CART) and its Random Forest (RF)...

While the idea of governments issuing financial instruments whose repayments are indexed to gross domestic product (GDP) is not new, the current global backdrop of high sovereign debt coupled with low interest rates and weak and uncertain nominal growth prospects suggests the case for doing so...