The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has...

The financial crisis and economic downturn threatens the welfare of more than 160 million people who are poor or are just above the poverty line in the economies of Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Turkey. This note concerns the findings of recent World Bank analysis...

This article examines the distributional effects of the fiscal adjustment programme in Greece agreed with the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2010. It deals with adjustment measures that are front loaded and directly related to the household welfare: an...

This article uses cross-country data to estimate the potential effect of drastic reductions in the price of cocaine on the share of the population that consumes this drug. In order to identify movements along the cocaine consumption/demand function, this article instruments for cocaine prices...