This paper uses a Binary Classification Tree (BCT) model to analyze banking crises in 50 emerging market and developing countries during 1990-2005. The BCT model identifies three conditions (and the specific threshold of the key indictors) at which the vulnerability to banking crisis...

Incorporating an intermediate input into a simple small-union general-equilibrium model, this paper first develops the welfare economics of preferential trading under the rules of origin (ROO) and then demonstrates that ROOs can improve the political viability of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)....

Has the unprecedented financial globalization of recent years changed the behavior of capital flows across countries? Using a newly constructed database of gross and net capital flows since 1980 for a sample of nearly 150 countries, this paper finds that private capital flows are typically...

Growth takeoffs in developing economies have rebounded in the past two decades. Although recent takeoffs have lasted longer than takeoffs before the 1990s, a key question is whether they could unravel like some did in the past. This paper finds that recent takeoffs are associated with stronger...

A growing number of countries are adopting flexible exchange rate regimes because flexibility offers more protection against external shocks and greater monetary independence. Other countries have made the transition under disorderly conditions, with the sharp depreciation of their currency...

This paper builds a Bayesian VAR estimation model of growth for Canada, by focusing specifically on the role of external and domestic financial indicators, including credit conditions. A variance decomposition shows that financial conditions explain one-third of the total variability in Canada's...

After the large exchange rate depreciations following the 1997 East Asian crisis, export volumes from East Asian countries responded with a notable lag. Two main explanations for this lag have been proposed: that contraction in domestic credit affected supply of exports; and that ‘competitive...

This paper uses a Binary Classification Tree (BCT) model to analyze banking crises in 50 emerging market and developing countries during 1990-2005. The BCT identifies key indicators and their threshold values at which vulnerability to banking crisis increases. The three conditions identified as...

Although the economic growth literature has come a long way since the Solow-Swan model of the fifties, there is still considerable debate on the ""real' or ""deep"" determinants of growth. This paper revisits the question of what is really important for strong long-term growth by using a Binary...