This paper focuses on the contribution to recent narrowing of the gap between Northern and Southern economies in GDP/capita, shares in world trade and market capitalization attributable both jointly and single to China, India, and Brazil (the three currently largest rapidly growing Southern...

We review the modern history of financial crises, providing a context for analyses of the world's recent bout of financial instability. Along with indicators of economic performance in the subject countries, we present a comprehensive description of multilateral rescue efforts spanning the last...

Payne and Kumazawa (2005) examine the effect of domestic savings, foreign aid, the evolution of capital mobility over time, and openness on investment rates using a panel of sub-Saharan African countries. They find that capital mobility has increased over time and that foreign aid and openness...

With recent studies generating skepticism toward aid-effectiveness for economic growth of some aid-dependent economies, the need to re-examine the effectiveness of foreign aid for economic growth has gained increasing importance. This paper examines the role of foreign aid in per-capita economic...

We introduce the real exchange rate volatility curve as a useful device to understand the role of price stickiness in accounting for deviations from the Law of One Price at the sector level. In the presence of both nominal and real shocks, the theory predicts that the real exchange rate...

The World Bank has developed a novel method for measuring countries’ connectivity in global networks and has applied it to the global air transport network. “Connectivity” in this context is defined as a country’s relative position in that network in terms of the total “push” and...

Which are the main frictions and driving forces of business cycle dynamics in a small open economy? To answer this question we extend what is becoming the standard new Keynesian model in three dimensions. First, we incorporate frictions in the financing of the capital stock. Second, we model...

Over the past decade, geopolitical developments - and the policy responses to these by major economies around the world - have challenged economic openness and the process of globalisation, with implications for the economic environment in which central banks operate. The return of war to Europe...

Exchange rate misalignment may exacerbate the costs of transition for the former socialist economies. We examine the exchange rate policies of Poland, calculate the real exchange rate based upon the CPI, PPI, wage rates and profits and then calculate misalignment. Purchasing power parity...

The IMF began to play a prominent role in low-income countries in the late 1970s and 1980s when many countries faced overvalued exchange rates, growing budget deficits, high inflation, and low reserves. But times have changed, and many low-income countries no longer face these problems and do...