Consider two views of the global financial crisis. One view looks across the border: it blames external imbalances, the unprecedented current account deficits and surpluses in recent years. Another view looks within the border: it faults domestic financial systems where risks originated in...

This paper analyzes the transmission of shocks and policies among and across the Nordic economies and the rest of the world. This spillover analysis is based on a pair of estimated structural macroeconometric models of the world economy, disaggregated into thirty five national economies. We find...

The paper looks at the challenges of conducting monetary policy in a context of high dollarization of the banking system and weak institutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The empirical analysis confirms the limited effectiveness of the Central Bank of Congo in controlling inflation,...

This paper investigates the relation between growth forecast errors and planned fiscal consolidation during the crisis. We find that, in advanced economies, stronger planned fiscal consolidation has been associated with lower growth than expected, with the relation being particularly strong,...

This paper uses the Shapley Value decomposition technique to assess the factors behind the rise of inequality in China. It finds that, in many ways, inequality may have been an inevitable by-product of China’s investment and export-led growth model. Between Chinese households, we find that the...

This paper examines the impact of financial depth on macroeconomic volatility using a dynamic panel analysis for 110 advanced and developing countries. We find that financial depth plays a significant role in dampening the volatility of output, consumption, and investment growth, but only up to...

The paper asks how state of the art DSGE models that account for the conditional response of hours following a positive neutral technology shock compare in a marginal likelihood race. To that end we construct and estimate several competing small-scale DSGE models that extend the standard real...

This paper investigates whether banking crises are associated with declines in bilateral exports. We first develop a simple open economy model in which banking crises translate into negative liquidity shocks, leading to collapses in exports through supply-side and demand-side shocks. We then...

Since the early 1990s, major tax administration reforms have been implemented in the Francophone countries of sub-Saharan Africa, with significant support from the IMF and development partners. While the reforms have contributed to an increase in revenues, attention is still needed to address a...

The aim of this empirical study is to describe and provide analysis on the experience of managing capital flows in Iceland and the Baltic countries. During the build-up of the crisis, there were shortcomings in macroeconomic policies and in the policy mix, as well as in financial supervision in...