This paper considers the determinants of exports of modern services and traditional services. It considers the growth of export volumes as well as export surges, that is, the periods of rapid sustained export growth. It asks whether the determinants of export growth rates and export surges...

In May 2013, Federal Reserve officials first began to talk of the possibility of tapering their security purchases. This tapering talk had a sharp negative impact on emerging markets. Different countries, however, were affected very differently. This paper uses data on exchange rates, foreign...

While India is distinctive among developing countries for its fast-growing service sector, sceptics have raised doubts about the quality and sustainability of this service-sector growth and its implications for economic development. We show, consistent with the views of the sceptics, that while...

The positive association between the service sector share of output and per capita income is one of the best-known regularities in all of growth and development economics. Yet there is less than complete agreement on the nature of that association. Here we identify two waves of service sector...

Could a high-access, quick-disbursing "insurance facility" in the IMF help to reduce the incidence of sharp interruptions in capital flows ("sudden stops")? We contribute to the debate on this question by analyzing the impact of conventional IMF-supported programs on the incidence of sudden...

This paper provides an assessment of India's inflation-targeting regime. It shows that the Reserve Bank of India is best characterized as a flexible inflation targeter: contrary to criticism, it does not neglect changes in the output gap when setting policy rates. The paper does not find that...