Until recently, China has been the leading contributor to global economic growth and-since the recent global financial crisis-a stabilizing driver of its evolution. However, as China recently began to rebalance its economy away from investment and exports and toward consumption, its GDP growth...

West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries face a well-known dilemma between the need to provide shock-smoothing mechanisms and the lack of adequate mechanisms to do so. WAEMU countries are subject to frequent and, to a large extent, asymmetric shocks. They have remained poorly...

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), like other monetary unions, faces a number of challenges in dealing with macroeconomic shocks. The region experiences a large number of exogenous shocks: climate-related (e.g., droughts, floods), with a heavy toll on populations and...

The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area and whether a supranational fiscal risk sharing mechanism could insure countries against very severe downturns. Using an unbalanced panel of 15 euro area countries over the period 1979-2010, the...

This paper analyzes the relation between nominal exchange rate volatility and several macroeconomic variables, namely real output growth, excess credit, foreign direct investment (FDI) and the current account balance, in the Central and Eastern European EU member states. Using panel estimations...

The aim of this paper is to assess the consequences of banking crises for public debt. Using an unbalanced panel of 154 countries from 1980 to 2006, the paper shows that banking crises are associated with a significant and long-lasting increase in government debt. The effect is a function of the...

The aim of this work is to assess the short and medium term impact of banking crises on developing economies. Using an unbalanced panel of 159 countries from 1970 to 2006, the paper shows that banking crises produce significant output losses, both in the short and in the medium term. The effect...

The aim of the paper is to re-assess the bank credit development in 11 Central and Eastern European countries and to provide new estimates of the credit-to-GDP ratio equilibrium level. Using filtering methods and dynamic panel estimations, our results suggest an “excessive” credit...