This paper offers an empirical evaluation of the output contribution of infrastructure. Drawing from a large data set on infrastructure stocks covering 88 countries and spanning the years 1960-2000, and using a panel time-series approach, the paper estimates a long-run aggregate production...

The main goal of this paper is to characterize the determinants of sudden stops caused by domestic vis-a-vis foreign residents. Are the decisions of domestic investors to invest abroad or of foreign investors to cut off funds from the domestic economy governed by the same set of determinants?...

This paper examines the effects of trade on growth among Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement countries. To accomplish this task, the authors collected a panel data set of 136 countries over 1960-2010, and estimated cross-country growth regressions using an econometric...

Advanced and emerging market economies have rapidly integrated into international capital markets and this growing globalization of financial markets has led to some important changes in the patterns of saving and investment across the world. The main goal of this paper is to test whether the...

Over the past 15 years, gross inflows to industrial and developing countries have enjoyed a wild ride. After reaching record highs in the run-up to the global financial crisis, they collapsed dramatically in 2008-09. As signs of global recovery reappeared, capital inflows resumed although at...

The 2008-2009 financial crisis has shaken the prevailing equilibrium of the global economy, with a collapse in capital flows and international trade. How will the post-crisis constellation of current account imbalances look? Will the world resume financing the United States (US), and continue...

This paper surveys the academic and policy debate on the roots of global imbalances, their role in the inception of the global crisis, and their prospects in its aftermath. The conventional view holds that global imbalances result primarily from unsustainably high demand for goods in the United...

This paper examines the extent of international consumption risk sharing for a group of 50 industrial and developing countries. The analysis is based on the empirical implementation of a model of partial consumption insurance whose parameters have the natural interpretation of coefficients of...

Capital flows to developing countries are small and take mostly the form of loans rather than direct foreign investment. We build a simple model of North-South capital flows that highlights the interplay between diminishing returns, production risk and sovereign risk. This model generates a set...

Regulation is purportedly enacted to serve specific social purposes. In reality, however, it follows a more complex political economy process, where legitimate social goals are mixed with the objectives of particular interest groups. Whatever its justification and objectives, regulation can have...