Financial systems can contribute to economic development by providing people with useful tools for risk management, but when they fail to manage the risks they retain, they can create severe financial crises with devastating social and economic effects. The financial crisis that hit the world...

This paper uses data from a large survey of Chinese firms to investigate whether local government efforts to facilitate market development improve firm efficiency. Both government provision of information about products, markets, and innovation and government assistance in arranging loans are...

Numerous studies predict that developing countries with low human capital may not benefit from the strengthening of intellectual property rights. The authors extend an influential theoretical framework to highlight the role of intellectual property rights in the process of innovation and...

This paper applies global value chain analysis to study recent trends in the global automotive industry. The authors pay special attention to the effects of the recent economic crisis on the industry in developing countries. The principal finding is that the crisis has accelerated pre-crisis...

In the past two decades, cross-border portfolio holdings of a large variety of assets have risen sharply. This has created an important role for changes in asset prices of a country's external assets and liabilities (i.e."valuation effects") in affecting the country's net foreign asset position....

This paper explores the evolution of OECD imports over time and as a function of income levels, measuring the concentration of those imports across origin countries at the product level. The authors find evidence of diversification followed, in the last years of the sample period (post-2000), by...

The allocation of production across firms is a potentially important explanation of the productivity gap between rich and poor economies. Reforms to trade policy and the domestic financial sector are often both key elements of policy packages aimed at reducing productive distortions. However,...

This paper models the global financial crisis as a combination of shocks to global housing markets and sharp increases in risk premia of firms, households and international investors in a global economic model. The model has six sectors of production and trade in 15 major economies and regions....

Empirical evidence suggests that the higher-order effects of natural disasters, which affect intangible assets, may be even more important than the material inter-industry effects. However, most existing general equilibrium models ignore higher order effects concerning human capital. Moreover,...

In this paper the authors apply global value chain (GVC) analysis to recent trends in the global automotive industry, with special attention paid to government interventions triggered by the recent economic crisis. The authors first highlight some of the defining characteristics of GVCs in this...