Despite progress in the past decade, financial markets in Colombia remain relatively small and shallow. In particular the banking system suffers high intermediation costs, which limit constrains access to finance by households and firms. This paper explores some of the causes behind these...

The euro area sovereign debt crisis highlighted important weaknesses in the euro area design. Fiscal policy did not build sufficient buffers before the crisis, which forced some countries to tighten fiscal policy too rapidly during the downturn to restore market confidence in sovereign...

The discussion about a fiscal stabilisation capacity as a way of providing more fiscal integration in the euro area has strengthened in the aftermath of the European sovereign debt crisis. Among the instruments that can be used for temporary macroeconomic stabilisation in the presence of both...

Excessive credit growth, poor risk assessment and lax lending standards in the run up to the 2008 global crisis led to unsustainable debt build-up in banks and related corporates. A weak framework for the governance of largely state-owned banks is likely to have contributed to the misallocation...

Fiscal constitutions comprise the set of rules and frameworks guiding fiscal policy that are enshrined in a country’s fundamental laws. This paper compares the fiscal constitutions of 15 federal countries by empirically assessing five building blocks: 1) the power of sub-national governments...

This working paper aims to better understand the process of graduation from least developed country (LDC) states in a Pacific small island developing state (SIDS), and provides the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and other development partners with evidence-based analysis and...

Differences in the dynamisms of economies are persistent. Notwithstanding the growing body of evidence documenting these large cross-country differences, our understanding of what drives them is still rather limited. This paper seeks to help close this gap. Using unique data for ten countries...