This paper takes a hard look at the experience with official intervention in sovereign debt crises, focusing on debt crises of the 1980s, Russia in 1998, Argentina in 2001, and Greece in 2010. Based on the track record, the authors argue that in situations where countries face a solvency...

This note examines in detail Brazil's export performance over the past 15 years, focusing not only on growth and composition, but also on different performance dimensions, including diversification, sophistication, and firm dynamics. The analysis uses international comparisons to better situate...

Confidence in combining inflation-targeting-cum-flexible-exchange-rate regimes with isolated microprudential regulation as a means to guarantee both macroeconomic and financial stability has been shattered by the scale and synchronization of asset price booms and busts that preceded the current...

Although Brazil has become one of the largest economies in the world, it remains among the most closed economies as measured by the share of exports and imports in gross domestic product. This feature cannot be explained simply by the size of Brazil's economy. Rather, it is due to an economic...

This paper studies the interactions between access to infrastructure, women?s time allocation, and economic growth in developing countries. The first part provides a review of the evidence on the impact of poor infrastructure on women?s ability to allocate their time to productive activities....

This paper studies the long-run impact of policies aimed at fostering gender equality on economic growth in Brazil. The first part provides a brief review of gender issues in the country. The second part presents a gender-based, three-period OLG model that accounts for women’s time allocation...

This paper studies the growth effects of externalities associated with intergenerational health transmission, health persistence, and access to infrastructure (or lack thereof), which affects women's occupational choices. Following a brief review of the evidence on these issues, a gender-based...

The objective of this paper is to analyze the concept and determinants of "sovereign risk" and the role of the credit risk rating agencies which serve internationally as the main reference instruments employed by economic agents to assess this risk. The paper also tries to identify macroeconomic...