This paper examines spending plans suggested by the recent literature regarding Dutch disease and examines their implications to Niger relative to its expanding mineral sector. The key to the benefits of significant mineral revenue lies with the productivity and supply responses of spending. If...

This paper examines the theory of Dutch disease and its implications for practical policy questions. Dutch disease is a term that is well-known to economists and development practitioners. But it is also a concept that is often conflated with"resource curse"and misinterpreted as a"disease"that...

This paper analyzes the evolution of sovereign credit ratings in the wake of the global financial crisis by studying changes in actual, shadow, and relative ratings between 2008 and 2012. For countries that do not have a rating from the major rating agencies, shadow ratings are estimated as a...

The paper documents an intriguing development in the emerging world in the 2000s: a decoupling from the business cycle of advanced countries, combined with the strengthening of the co-movements in the main emerging market assets that predates the synchronized sell-off during the crisis. In...

In recent years, world food prices have increased and fluctuated widely. This paper explores the impact of international food prices and domestic policies on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and macro indicators for two archetype low-income countries, a net food exporter and a net food...

Large oil reserves off the coast of Brazil may substantially increase the country’s oil revenue in the future. A natural resource"curse"could be the consequence if an appropriate share of the oil revenue is not invested. This issue is addressed in this paper for Brazil both theoretically and...

A frequent charge in foreign exchange markets in developing countries is that of manipulators being at work. Since to buy is to raise prices and to sell is to lower prices, the question that naturally arises is whether the widespread charge of market manipulation is valid. The paper shows that...

This paper investigates the factors associated with foreign direct investment"surges"and"stops,"defined as sharp increases and decreases, respectively, of gross foreign direct investment inflows to the developing world and differentiated based on whether these events are led by waves in...

Using a new, large data set on quarterly reserve requirements for the period 1970-2011, this paper provides new evidence on the use of reserve requirements as a countercyclical macroprudential tool in developing countries. The appeal of reserve requirements lies in the pro-cyclical behavior of...

Much of Sub-Saharan Africa's post-independence macroeconomic history has been characterized by boom-bust cycles. Growth accelerations have been common, but short lived. Weak policy formulation and implementation led to large external and fiscal imbalances, excessive debt accumulation, volatile...