This paper investigates the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on economic growth across developing countries. It documents the evolution and co-movement of COVID-19 infections with government responses (including health containment measures) across developing countries. It then...

This paper estimates the impact of digital infrastructure on economic growth and its sources. The analysis uses system generalized method of moments and finds evidence of a causal impact from the digital infrastructure variables to economic growth, its sources, income inequality, and poverty....

This book documents the productivity trends in Sub-Saharan Africa in three different dimensions, assessing productivity at the aggregate level, the sectoral level, and the establishment level. It characterizes the evolution of productivity in the region relative to other countries and regions,...

Sub-Saharan Africa's recovery from the pandemic is expected to decelerate in 2022 amid a slowdown in global economic activity, continued supply constraints, outbreaks of new coronavirus variants, climatic shocks, high inflation, and rising financial risks due to high and increasingly vulnerable...

This paper presents evidence on the impact of labor regulations on income inequality using a recently published database on labor institutions and outcomes as well as different panel data analysis techniques for a large sample of countries for 1970-2000. When applying our preferred technique we...

Workers' remittances have become a major source of income for developing countries. However, little is still known about their impact on poverty and inequality. Using a large cross-country panel dataset, we find that remittances in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have increased...

COVID-19 has taken a large toll on economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa, putting a decade of hard-won economic progress at risk. The pandemic is pushing the region into its first recession in 25 years. In 2020, GDP per capita is expected to contract by 6.5 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa and by...

This paper investigates how government interventions into banking systems such as blanket guarantees, liquidity support, recapitalizations, and nationalizations affect banking competition. This debate is important because the pricing of banking products has implications for borrower and...

The current global crisis, although initially circumscribed to the US housing market, spread rapidly across markets and borders. It has affected almost all countries through different reinforcing channels: the contraction in international trade, capital flows, remittances, and international...

Although foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have tended to remain resilient during previous crises, they may not behave in a similar fashion during the current crisis. Why? In past crises, the stability of FDI flows was significantly associated with an increase in mergers and acquisitions...