This Selected Issues paper on the United States examines the effect of the structure of the mortgage market on real housing activity and housing prices. The market-based financial structure has reduced the volatility of mortgage lending. Changes in the structure of the mortgage market have...

Fixed exchange rate regimes have come into disrepute, as their defense has become all but impossible. Yet, while a determined attack on a currency cannot be prevented or, ultimately, withstood, policies can reduce the vulnerability of a country to such attacks. The paper develops an analytical...

We use data on the sources of debt finance of U.S. majority-owned foreign affiliates in 53 countries over the period 1983 to 2001 to examine the role of financial market development, and exposure to host country-specific risk on the financing choices of these affiliates. We find that total...

We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) between 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier work, our results suggest that FDI leads to substantial productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI spillovers is...

Using firm-level data for Estonia for the years 1997-2005, we analyze the impact of international competition on firm dynamics, considering both firm closedown and product switching. We contribute to the literature in two important ways: (1) this is the first paper to study the determinants of...

This paper examines the importance of agglomeration economies and institutions vis-a-vis initial conditions and factor endowments in explaining the locational choice of foreign investors. Using a unique panel data set for 25 transition economies between 1990 and 1998, we find that the main...

This paper examines tax policy and tax reforms in Uganda. Using household survey evidence, the paper identifies which taxes are progressive and investigates whether tax reforms have made the poor better or worse off. Household survey analysis reveals that some of the tax reforms implemented in...

In this paper, we adopt a cross-country perspective to examine the evolution of capital flows into China, both in terms of volumes and composition. China's inflows have generally been dominated by foreign direct investment (FDI), a pattern that appears to be favorable in light of the recent...

The Mexican, Asian, and Russian crises of the mid- and late 1990s have renewed interest among policymakers in the determinants and effects of private capital inflows. This paper analyzes whether policies can affect the composition of capital inflows and whether different compositions aggravate...

Despite the liberalization of foreign portfolio investment around the globe since the early 1980s, the home-bias phenomenon is still found to exist. Using a relatively new IMF survey dataset of cross-border equity holdings, this paper tests new structural equations from a consumption-based...