"La era de la productividad" describe de qué manera la baja productividad de América Latina y el Caribe impide que la región se ponga a la par de los países del mundo desarrollado. Los autores indagan más allá de las explicaciones macroeconómicas tradicionales y profundizan hasta llegar...

Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital...

This paper examines Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the aftermath of large natural disasters between 1970 and 2008. Using an event-study approach, the paper finds that while the median increase in ODA is 18 percent compared to pre-disaster flows, the typical surge is small in relation...

Europe faces challenges reminiscent of Latin American financial crises. The failure of recent liquidity support to normalize the situation in Europe suggests the need to refocus the policy debate on fundamentals: structural reform for growth and, where needed, restructuring to resolve banking...

Openness to trade is one factor that has been identified as determining whether a country is prone to sudden stops in capital inflow, currency crashes, or severe recessions. Some believe that openness raises vulnerability to foreign shocks, while others believe that it makes adjustment to crises...

This study explores the determinants of corporate bond spreads in emerging markets economies. Using a largely unexploited data set, the paper finds that corporate bond spreads are determined by firm-specific variables, bond characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, country-specific sovereign...

This paper provides empirical evidence for the importance of institutions in determining the outcome of crises on long-term growth. We show that once unobserved country-specific effects and other sources of endogeneity are accounted for, political institutions affect growth through their...

Openness to trade is one factor that has been identified as determining whether a country is prone to sudden stops in capital inflows. Several authors have offered empirical evidence that having a large tradable sector reduces the contraction necessary to adjust to a given cut-off in funding....

Many economists believe that, while openness to trade increases average GDP growth rates, it also raises output volatility by exposing countries to terms-oftrade shocks. This view does not take into account that commercial trade might also reduce financially related volatility. Once this is...

Europe faces challenges reminiscent of Latin American financial crises. The failure of recent liquidity support to normalize the situation in Europe suggests the need to refocus the policy debate on fundamentals: structural reform for growth and, where needed, restructuring to resolve banking...