This Working Paper analyzes the extent to which Chinese demand enhanced the performance of Latin American economies in economic boom that took place from the turn of the century until the run up to the financial and economic crisis of 2008-2009. It has been argued that China’s rise was been a...

In the run up to the financial crisis of 2007-2009 many developing nations fell victim to massive inflows of capital, capital that their financial systems found difficult to absorb.  One of a number of policy options to respond to such inflows is unremunerated reserve requirements (URR).  Two...

This Working Paper considers the role of democracy in environmental quality and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Some studies in the EKC literature have examined the extent to which democratic nations are more or less apt to have improving environmental conditions, but they have drawn from...

The global financial crisis has triggered a transformation in thinking and practice regarding the role of government in managing international capital flows. This paper traces and evaluates the re-emergence of capital controls as legitimate tools to promote financial stability. Whereas capital...

International capital mobility has long been associated with financial and banking crises.  The Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund contain multi-lateral rules to govern global capital flows.  For some countries, especially those in the developing world, the IMF Articles...

Since the early 1990s Latin American nations have been signing trade treaties with the United States that have brought small gains and high costs. Pending deals between the United States and Colombia and the United States and Panama are no different. Each is based on the same template that has...

Unstable global capital flows to developing countries have been characteristic of the world economy in the wake of the global financial crisis. The nations that have deployed capital controls to mitigate the negative effects of such flows have been branded as “protectionist” by some. This...