Recent theoretical literature has suggested a variety of mechanisms through which poverty may deter growth and become self-perpetuating. A few papers have searched for empirical regularities consistent with those mechanisms - such as aggregate non-convexities and convergence clubs. However, a...

The social discount rate measures the rate at which a society would be willing to trade present for future consumption. As such it is one of the most critical inputs needed for cost-benefit analysis. This paper presents estimates of the social discount rates for nine Latin American countries. It...

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, the authors find that remittances in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have...

"Is a pro-growth strategy always the best pro-poor strategy? To address this issue, Lopez provides an empirical evaluation of the impact of a series of pro-growth policies on inequality and headcount poverty. He relies on a large macroeconomic data set and estimate dynamic panel models that...

Crude oil prices have dramatically increased over the past years and are now at a historical maximum in nominal terms and very close to it in real terms. It is difficult to argue, at least for net oil importers, that higher oil prices have a positive impact on welfare. In fact, the negative...

Existing empirical evidence indicates that remittances have a positive impact on a good number of development indicators of recipient countries. Yet when flows are too large relative to the size of the recipient economies, as those observed in a number of Latin American countries, they may also...

This paper studies the sources of Spanish business cycles. It assumes that Spanish output is affected by two types of shocks. The first one has permanent long-run effects on output and it is identified as a supply shock. The second one has only transitory effects on output and it is identified...

This paper presents a methodology for calculating bilateral equilibrium exchange rates for a panel of currencies in a way that guarantees global consistency. The methodology has three parts: a theoretical model that encompasses the balance of payments and the Balassa-Samuelson approaches to real...

Recent theoretical literature has suggested a variety of mechanisms through which poverty may deter growth and become self-perpetuating. A few papers have searched for empirical regularities consistent with those mechanisms such as aggregate non-convexities and convergence clubs. However, a...