Assessments of exchange rate misalignments and external imbalances for low-income countries are challenging because methodologies developed for advanced and emerging economies cannot be automatically applied to poorer nations. This paper uses a large database, unique in the set of indicators and...

Trade elasticities are often needed in applied country work for various purposes and this paper describes a method for estimating import demand and export supply elasticities withoutusing econometrics. The paper reports empirical estimates of these elasticities for a large number of low, middle,...

This paper examines whether the real exchange rates of commodity-exporting countries and the real prices of their commodity exports move together over time. Using IMF data on the world prices of 44 commodities and national commodity export shares, we construct new monthly indices of national...

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 the policy of high interest rates limited access to domestic credit and hence...