India's financial sector has faced many challenges in recent decades, with a large, negative, and persistent credit to GDP gap since 2012. We examine how cyclical financial conditions affect GDP growth using a growth-at-risk (GaR) approach and analyze the link between bank balance sheets, credit...

This paper presents stylized facts on financial development in the CCA countries relative to their EM and LIC peers and assesses how financial development can boost growth in the CCA. Drawing on IMF's multidimensional index of financial development, we find that CCA countries have made progress...

This paper presents a novel framework to estimate the elasticity between nighttime lights and quarterly economic activity. The relationship is identified by accounting for varying degrees of measurement errors in nighttime light data across countries. The estimated elasticity is 1.55 for...

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the impact of an unanticipated change in public debt on real GDP. Using public debt forecast errors, we identify exogenous changes in public debt to assess the impact of a change in the debt to GDP ratio on real GDP. By analyzing data on gross public...

The coronavirus crisis has stiffened debt and development-related headwinds that had become strong even before 2020. Sustaining development while maintaining debt sustainability has been made harder by the protracted effects of the pandemic on public finances, earnings and employment, and human...

This paper provides the first review of the adequacy of PRGT finances since the comprehensive reform of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) in July 2021. It describes the lending response to the unprecedented pandemic-related demand; updates the PRGT demand scenarios and the estimates...