This paper analyzes the impact of public investment on private investment in 116 developing countries between 1980 and 2006. It finds a strong crowding-out effect that seems to be the norm rather than the exception, both across regions and over time. This effect is dampened (or even reversed) in...

This paper analyzes the long-run relationship between output collapses—defined defined as GDP falling substantially below trend—and total factor productivity (TFP), using a panel of 71 developed and developing countries during the period 1960-2003 to identify episodes of output collapse and...

The role of regional integration agreements as a determinant of the location of FDI has become an increasingly relevant issue for emerging economies. In Latin America, the largest effects are likely to be associated with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In this regard, there are a...

This paper studies the impact of regional integration agreements (RIAs) on the location of foreign direct investment (FDI), using data on bilateral outward FDI stocks from the OECD International Direct Investment Statistics. The dataset covers FDI from 20 source countries, all of them from the...

This paper combines development and growth accounting exercises with economic theory to estimate the relative importance of total factor productivity and the accumulation of factors of production in the economic development performance of Latin America. The region's development performance is...

In the first eight decades of the XX century, Brazil ranked among the countries with highest growth rates in the world. During the period 1930-80, in particular, it managed to reduce its per capita income gap vis-à-vis industrialized economies and seemed poised to escape underdevelopment early...

Europe faces challenges reminiscent of Latin American financial crises. The failure of recent liquidity support to normalize the situation in Europe suggests the need to refocus the policy debate on fundamentals: structural reform for growth and, where needed, restructuring to resolve banking...

This paper examines Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the aftermath of large natural disasters between 1970 and 2008. Using an event-study approach, the paper finds that while the median increase in ODA is 18 percent compared to pre-disaster flows, the typical surge is small in relation...

Natural disasters are an important source of vulnerability in the Caribbean region. Despite being one of the more disaster-prone areas of the world, it has the lowest levels of insurance coverage. This paper examines the vulnerability of Belize's public finance to the occurrence of hurricanes...

This paper proposes a new taxonomy of Sudden Stops comprised of seven categories with definitions depending on the behavior of gross and net capital flows. The incidence of different types of Sudden Stops is tracked over time and the type of Sudden Stop related to economic performance. Sudden...