We investigate the relationship between economic growth and lagged internationalcapital flows, disaggregated into FDI, portfolio investment, equity investment, and shorttermdebt. We follow about 100 countries during 1990-2010 when emerging marketsbecame more integrated into the international...

We estimate the pricing of sovereign risk for sixty countries based on fiscal space (debt/tax;deficits/tax) and other economic fundamentals over 2005-10. We measure how accurately themodel predicts sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads, focusing in particular on the fivecountries in the...

This paper evaluates the impact of globalization on the tax bases of countries at varying stages of development. We see globalization as a process that induces countries to embrace greater trade and financial integration, and macro stabilization. This in turn should shift their tax base from...

We define the notion of a ‘de facto fiscal space’ of a country as the inverse of the tax-years itwould take to repay the public debt. Specifically, we measure the outstanding public debtrelative to the de facto tax base, where the latter measures the realized tax collection,...

This paper evaluates the degree to which current account patterns are explained by the variables suggested by the literature, and reflects on possible future patterns. We start with panel regressions explaining the current account of 69 countries during 1981-2006. We identify an asymmetric...

This paper evaluates the political economy and structural factors explaining the collection efficiency of the Value Added Tax [VAT]. We consider the case where the collection efficiency is determined by the probability of audit and by the penalty on underpaying. Implementation lags imply that...

This paper studies the association between the current account and real estate valuation across countries, subject to data availability [43 countries, of which 25 are OECD], during 1990 - 2005. We find robust and strong positive association between current account deficits and the appreciation...

This note investigates the impact of greater income inequality on the tax base, on the defactofiscal space, and the sovereign spreads. Using data from 50 countries in 2005 and in 2010,we find that higher income inequality is associated with a lower tax base, lower de-facto fiscalspace, and...

This paper studies the cross-country variation of the fiscal stimulus and the exchange rate adjustmentpropagated by the global crisis of 2008-9, identifying the role of economic structure in accounting for theheterogeneity of response. We find that greater de facto fiscal space prior to the...

This paper investigates the association between greater income inequality, de-facto fiscalspace, and sovereign spreads. Using data from 50 countries in 2007, in 2009 and in 2011, wefind that higher income inequality is associated with a lower tax base, lower de-facto fiscalspace, and higher...