This paper provide evidence of the early transition from coal to oil for 20 Latin American countries over the first half of the 20th century, which does not fit the transition experiences of large energy consumers. These small energy consumers had earlier and faster transitions than leading...

This paper describes some historical features of the global economic geography of copper, and explores the conditions underpinning environmental conflicts in this sector, while showing some examples. We found that Europe and Japan are progressively more dependent on imports from developing...

This paper describes some historical features of the global economic geography of copper, and explores the conditions underpinning environmental conflicts in this sector, while showing some examples. We found that Europe and Japan are progressively more dependent on imports from developing...

This paper proposes a nonparametric test in order to establish the level of accuracy of the foreign trade statistics of 17 Latin American countries when contrasted with the trade statistics of the main partners in 1925. The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Ranks test is used to determine whether the...

This paper proposes a framework to implement regression-based tests of predictive ability in unstable environments, including, in particular, forecast unbiasedness and efficiency tests, commonly referred to as tests of forecast rationality. Our framework is general: it can be applied to...

We analyze holdings of public bonds by over 20,000 banks in 191 countries, and the role of these bonds in 20 sovereign defaults over 1998-2012. Banks hold many public bonds (on average 9% of their assets), particularly in less financially-developed countries. During sovereign defaults, exposure...

This paper studies exchange rate policy in a small open economy model featuring an occasionally binding collateral constraint and Fisherian deflation. The goal is to evaluate the performance of alternative exchange rate policies in sudden stop-prone economies. The key element of the analysis is...

This paper describes the stylized facts characterizing periods of exceptionally large capital inflows in a sample of 70 middle- and high-income countries over the last 35 years. We identify 155 episodes of large capital inflows, and we find that these events are typically accompanied by an...