We use changes in Brazil’s tax on capital inflows from 2006 to 2011 to test for direct portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls on investor portfolios. The analysis is structured based on information from investor interviews. We find that an increase in Brazil’s tax on...

Since the mid-1990s, we observe a global increase of current account imbalances. In 2007, before the climax of the financial crisis, they reached 2% of world GDP in absolute value. At the global level, the persistence of large current account imbalances is a threat to the macroeconomic and...

Michael D. Bordo has helped to define the modern field of monetary history, drawing from it important policy lessons for current practitioners. For his seventieth year, we survey his contributions to our understanding of the Great Depression, money and the economy in historical perspective,...

For two and a half decades the US has accumulated large current account deficits, mainly financed (though to different extents at different times) by the savings of the sluggish European and Japanese economies, of the fast-growing Asian countries and of the oil-producing nations. This peculiar...

This paper looks at the planned austerity measures in Spain, the rationale for the spending cuts and tax increases, likely outcomes for future debt-to-GDP ratios, and the probable results of alternative policies.

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of Europe-East Asia interdependences (in terms of relative economic weights, trade and financial integration, trade and financial flows, exchange rate and wealth transfers). The prime motivation of the paper is that linkages between Europe and East...

Despite over three decades of Liberalisation policies in Africa, income-inequality has stayed persistently high. Using updated panel data of 26 African countries spanning the period 1996-2010, this study examines the effect of liberalisation policies with particular focus on financial, trade,...

How much of non-performing loans can be explained by loan growth? If an increase in loan growth leads to higher profitability but does not necessarily cause non-performing loans to increase in the short run, banks with (managerial) short-termism will be ex ante incentivized to grant more loans...

Various attempts have been made recently at explaining why productivity differences persist between rich and poor countries, and why some countries diverge from the world technology frontier in terms of their per capita GDP levels or growth rates, while other countries manage to catch up with...

The international banking industry faces a challenging future, having to consolidate at a time of heightened global financial volatility, anemic growth in advanced countries, and shifting global growth balances. After a long period of sustained expansion and accommodating regulatory treatment,...