This paper examines the implications of bank activity and short-term funding strategies for bank risk and returns using an international sample of 1,334 banks in 101 countries leading up to the 2007 financial crisis. Expansion into non-interest income generating activities such as trading...

Financial market instability has been the focus of attention of both academic and policy circles. Rating agencies have been under particular scrutiny lately as promoters of financial excesses, upgrading countries in good times and downgrading them in bad times. Using a panel of emerging...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. It compiles a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. The main insight is that, as in...

A good understanding of the constraints on agricultural growth in Africa relies on the accurate measurement of smallholder labor. Yet, serious weaknesses in these statistics persist. The extent of bias in smallholder labor data is examined by conducting a randomized survey experiment among...

Paying for performance provides financial rewards to medical care providers for improvements in performance measured by specific utilization and quality of care indicators. In 2006, Rwanda began a paying for performance scheme to improve health services delivery, including HIV/AIDS services....

This paper develops and tests a proposed methodology that puts forward a new integrated method for evaluating the performance of development finance institutions. This methodology applies assessment criteria that take into account both the social objective that the development finance...

This paper empirically examines how standards and technical regulations affect export margins in three African countries at the firm level. The approach involves combining detailed customs transaction data at the firm-product level with bilateral information on non-tariff measures within a...

The expansion of marine protected areas (MPAs) is a core focus of global conservation efforts, with the "30x30" initiative to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030 serving as a prominent example of this trend. This paper examines a series of proposed MPA network expansions of various sizes and...

The design of the power market determines how the sector can address complex economic, social, environmental, and engineering challenges to deliver sustainable and reliable electricity at least cost to consumers. This is no simple task, as supply and demand must be balanced every second,...