This paper examines the behavior of remittances over the business cycle and their potential to act as a stabilizer during periods of high business cycle volatility. Four main findings are reported. First, in theory, the cyclical behavior of remittances depends on the motives to remit. Second,...

Cross-border capital flows are expected to lead to increased international risk sharing by facilitating borrowing and lending in global financial markets. This paper examines risk-sharing outcomes of various types of capital flows (foreign direct investment, portfolio equity, debt, remittance,...

This paper studies how the sensitivity of consumption to income has changed over time as the degree of financial integration has risen. In standard theory, greater financial integration facilitates international borrowing and lending, helping to reduce the sensitivity of consumption growth to...

Investment growth in emerging market and developing economies has slowed sharply since 2010. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the causes and implications of this slowdown and presents a menu of policy responses to improve investment growth. It reports four main results. First, the...

The shock of the pandemic and subsequent overlapping crises has led to a reversal in development by exacerbating the challenges facing the most vulnerable 75 economies eligible for concessional loans and grants from the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA). Over 2020-24, per...

We analyse cycles in policy interest rates in 24 advanced economies over 1970-2024, combining a new application of business cycle methodology with rich time-series decompositions of the shocks driving rate movements. "Rate cycles" have gradually evolved over time, with less frequent cyclical...

Conventional empirical models of monetary policy transmission in emerging market economies produce puzzling results: monetary tightening often leads to an increase in prices (the price puzzle) and depreciation of the currency (the FX puzzle). We show that incorporating forward-looking...

Debt in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is at its highest level in half a century. In about nine out of 10 EMDEs, debt is higher now than it was in 2010 and, in half of the EMDEs, debt is more than 30 percentage points of gross domestic product higher. Historically, elevated...

Recent energy and food price surges, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have exacerbated inflation pressuresthat are unusually high by the standards of the past two decades. High and rising inflation has prompted many emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) central banks and some...

Global inflation has risen sharply from its lows in mid-2020, on rebounding global demand, supply bottlenecks, and soaring food and energy prices, especially since the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine. Markets expect inflation to peak in mid-2022 and then decline, but to remain elevated...