The share of low-income countries in global exports nearly tripled between 1990 and 2015, driven largely by the rapid emergence of China as an exporting powerhouse. While research in economics had long acknowledged that trade with lower-income countries could raise income inequality in Europe...

This paper explores the relationship between openness to trade, immigration, and income per person across countries. To address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental-variables strategy introduced by Frankel and Romer (1999). We build predictors of openness to immigration and to trade...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges that emerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financial regulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with the imperatives of financial...

I document that emerging markets have cast off their "original sin" – their external liabilities are no longer dominated by foreign-currency debt and have instead shifted sharply towards direct investment and portfolio equity. Their external assets are increasingly concentrated in foreign...

This paper reviews evidence from 44 middle income countries on how the recent financial crisis affected jobs and workers' income. In addition to providing a rare assessment of the magnitude of the impact across several middle-income countries, the paper describes how labor markets adjusted and...

There are significant effects of changing demographics on economic indicators: growth in GDP especially, but also the current account balance and gross capital formation. The 15-24 age group appears to be one of the key age groups in these effects, with increases in that age group exerting...

This paper aims to provide a critical overview of the drivers that the relevant theoretical and empirical literature suggests being crucial in dealing with the challenges an emerging country may encounter in its attempts to further catch-up a higher income status, with a particular focus devoted...

This paper discusses the occurrence of Skill-Enhancing Technology Import (SETI), namely the relationship between imports of embodied technology and widening skill-based employment differentials in a sample of low and middle income countries (LMICs). In doing so, this paper provides a direct...

Industrialization is vital for inclusive and sustainable global development. The two engines of industrialization – innovation and trade – are in danger of being compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic, under conditions increasingly reminiscent of the medieval world. It comes at a...