We compare seven established risk elicitation methods and investigate how they explain an extensive set of risky behavior from a large household survey. We find overall positive correlation between items and low explanatory power in terms of behavior. Using an average of seven risk elicitation...

Remittance flows in emerging market and developing economies were surprisingly resilient during the COVID-19 crisis, providing much-needed income support for remittance-receiving households. However, households were impacted differently across income distributions. Using novel high-frequency...

Against the backdrop of a rapidly digitalizing world, there is a growing interest in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) among central banks, including in the Middle East and Central Asia (ME&CA) region. This paper aims to support ME&CA policymakers in examining key questions when...

Debt levels have surged since the mid-1990s and have reached historic highs across the OECD. High debt levels can create vulnerabilities, which amplify and transmit macroeconomic and asset price shocks. Furthermore, high debt levels hinder the ability of households and enterprises to smooth...

The decline in macroeconomic volatility from the 1980s to the onset of the Great Recession did not, in general, translate into more microeconomic stability. While microeconomic volatility can reflect growth-generating processes, such as creative destruction and re-allocation of resources,...