The current crisis saw an unprecedented collapse in international capital flows after years of rising financial globalization. We identify the stylized facts and main drivers of this development. The retrenchment in international capital flows is a highly heterogeneous phenomenon: first across...

In this volume, world-renowned contributors, including Martin Ravallion, Michael Kremer and Robert Townsend, deal with the institutional characteristics of poverty resulting from the time pattern of aid, the nature of financial systems and the political economy of budgetary decisions. Going...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic challenges created by a surge in aid inflows. It develops an analytical framework for examining possible policy responses to increased aid, in terms of absorption and spending of aid - where the central bank controls absorption through monetary policy...

This paper investigates the medium- and long-term growth effects of the global financial crises on Low-Income Countries (LICs). Using several methodological approaches, including impulse response function analysis, growth spells techniques and panel regressions, we show that external demand (ED)...

This paper investigates the short-run effects of the 2007-09 global financial crisis on growth in (mainly non-fuel exporting) low-income countries (LICs). Four conclusions stand out. First, for many individual LICs, 2009 was not extraordinarily calamitous; however, aggregate LIC output declined...

This paper uses a difference-in-difference methodology similar to the one originally proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998) to test whether defaulting hurts the more export-oriented industries. Strong support for this hypothesis was found, but contrary to the findings of previous studies, our...

Spreads on sovereign bonds are at an all-time low, at least since the current era of emerging economy bond markets began in the 1990s. This paper examines the current state of the international and domestic bond markets and asks whether the current favorable trends will constitute a durable...

This document analyzes the patterns of fiscal and monetary policy in five economies of the Latin American Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) during four episodes of international crises: 1994, 1997-1999, 2001 and 2008. In contrast with earlier episodes when most...

This is an update and revision of our 2009 study. Using a broad dataset and an original methodology, this paper reports composite development gaps across economic, social and institutional sectors. We define development gap as the distance between the observed and the expected development level...