The need to enhance food security while reducing poverty along with the growing threat imposed by climate change clearly reveal that it is imperative to accelerate agricultural productivity growth. This paper estimates micro-level production models to identify the major factors that have...

Previous studies indicate that Colombian farmers make production decisions based on informal sources of information, such as family and neighbors or tradition. In this paper we randomize recipients of price and weather information using text messages (SMS technology). We find that relative to...

This study investigates the disconnect between falling agricultural commodity prices and persistent food inflation by applying a Heterogeneous Vector Autoregression (VAR) model to a panel of 203 countries using data from 1961 to 2022. It analyzes the impact of global crops, fertilizer, and oil...

We show that explicitly modeling primary commodities in an otherwise totally standard incomplete markets open economy model can go a long way in explaining the Mussa puzzle and the Backus-Smith puzzle, two of the main puzzles in the international economics literature.

Financial inclusion is strikingly low in emerging economies. In only a few years, financial technologies (fintech) have led to a dramatic expansion in the number of non-traditional credit intermediaries, but the macroeconomic and credit-market implications of this rapid growth of fintech are not...

We study the role of multinationals (MNCs) in facilitating firm-level and aggregate structural transformation. Using a stylized model of multinational production and trade, we show that an inward multinational liberalization in the manufacturing sector raises employment in host country firms,...

This paper introduces a novel monetary policy framework where the exchange rate becomes the central instrument. Using Singapore as a case study, it explores the Monetary Authority's adoption of the exchange rate as the primary tool since 1981, diverging from conventional approaches centered on...

We study the welfare and macroeconomic implications of simple and implementable fiscal policy rules in commodity-dependent economies, where a large share of output, exports, and government revenues depend on exogenous and volatile commodity prices. Using a multi-sector New Keynesian model...

Singapore's unique monetary policy consists of a managed exchange rate framework that can be characterized as a Taylor-like reaction function with the nominal devaluation rate instead of the nominal interest rate as the main policy instrument. We build a small open economy New Keynesian model to...

This paper studies whether policymakers should wait to intervene until a financial crisis strikes or rather act in a preemptive manner. This question is examined in a relatively simple dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which crises are endogenous events induced by the presence of...