Economic performance in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) improved substantially over the past twenty years. The past decade was particularly good-for the first time EMDEs spent more time in expansion and had smaller downturns thanadvanced economies. In this paper we document...

The study documents evidence of a quality effect of financial liberalization on allocative efficiency, which is measured by the dispersion in Tobin's Q across firms. Based on a simple model, the authors predict that financial liberalization, by equalizing access to credit, reduces the variation...

Global temperatures have increased at an unprecedented pace in the past 40 years. This paper finds that increases in temperature have uneven macroeconomic effects, with adverse consequences concentrated in countries with hot climates, such as most low-income countries. In these countries, a rise...

Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is...

This paper discusses possible medium-term public debt targets for India, based on evidence from the economic literature on prudent levels of public debt and the feasibility for the country to meet a particular target over the next 5-6 years. While recognizing the challenges in determining an...

Has the unprecedented financial globalization of recent years changed the behavior of capital flows across countries? Using a newly constructed database of gross and net capital flows since 1980 for a sample of nearly 150 countries, this paper finds that private capital flows are typically...

Global trade growth has slowed since 2012 relative both to its strong historical performance and to overall economic growth. This paper aims to quantify the role of weak economic growth and changes in its decomposition in accounting for the slowdown in trade using a reduced form and a structural...

Reducing transport sector emissions is an important pillar of the green transition. However, the transition to electric vehicles (EV) portends major changes in vehicle manufacturing activity, on which many livelihoods in Europe depend. Using the heterogeneity across European countries in the...

European housing markets are at a turning point as the cost-of-living crisis has eroded real incomes and the surge in interest rates has made borrowers more vulnerable to financial distress. This paper aims to (i) shed light on the risks in European housing markets, (ii) quantify household...

This paper examines the link between gender diversity in senior corporate positions and financial performance of 2 million companies in Europe. We document a positive association between corporate return on assets and the share of women in senior positions and establish two potential channels...