The analysis of interconnectedness and contagion is an important part of the financial stability and risk assessment of a country's financial system. This paper offers detailed and practical guidance on how to conduct a comprehensive analysis of interconnectedness and contagion for a country's...

We leverage insights from machine learning to optimize the trade off between bias and variance when estimating economic models using pooled datasets. Specifically, we develop a simple algorithm that estimates the similarity of economic structures across countries and selects the optimal pool of...

Extending previous work on the determinants of IMF lending in an interconnected world, we introduce a model of sample selection in which both selection and size dimensions of individual IMF arrangements are presented within a unified econometric framework. We allow for unobserved heterogeneity...

We describe the evolution of forecasts in the run-up to recessions. The GDP forecasts cover 63 countries for the years 1992 to 2014. The main finding is that, while forecasters are generally aware that recession years will be different from other years, they miss the magnitude of the recession...

We examine the extent to which declining manufacturing employment may havecontributed to increasing inequality in advanced economies. This contribution is typicallysmall, except in the United States. We explore two possible explanations: the high initialmanufacturing wage premium and the high...

The ever-increasing digitalization of businesses has accelerated the need to address the many shortcomings and unresolved issues within the international corporate income tax system. In particular, the customer or 'user'-through their online activities-is now considered by many as being a...

Productivity growth in Japan, as in most advanced economies, has moderated. This paper finds supportive evidence for the important role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in explaining Japan's modest productivity growth. Results show a substantial dispersion in firm-level productivity...

There is no consensus on how strongly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has stimulated U.S. private fixed investment. Some argue that the business tax provisions spurred investment by cutting the cost of capital. Others see the TCJA primarily as a windfall for shareholders. We find that U.S....

Using a new firm-level dataset on private and listed firms from 20 countries, we documentfive stylized facts on market power in global markets. First, competition has declinedaround the world, measured as a moderate increase in average firm markups during 2000-2015. Second, the markup increase...

Does greater product market competition improve external competitiveness and growth? This paper examines this question by using country-and firm-level data for a sample of 39 sub-Saharan African countries over 2000-17, as well as other emerging market economies and developing countries, and...