This paper uses the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to examine how macroprudential frameworks developed over the past decade performed during a period of heightened financial and economic stress. It discusses a new measure of the macroprudential stance that better captures the intensity...

We find that financial conditions in the core have significant spillover effects on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). On average, a 1 percentage point easing of the IMF US Financial Conditions Index is associated with approximately a 10% higher volume of cross-border M&As. The...

This paper uses the onset of COVID-19 to examine how countries construct their policy packages in response to a severe negative shock. We use several new datasets to track the use of a large variety of policy tools: announced fiscal stimulus (both above- and below-the-line), monetary policy...