This technical note and manual (TNM) addresses the following issues: -- Evaluating the full implications from the policies adopted to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy requires a well-developed macroeconomic framework. This note illustrates how such frameworks were used...

Fluctuations in commodity prices are an important driver of business cycles in small emerging market economies (EMEs). We document how these fluctuations correlate strongly with the business cycle in EMEs. We then embed a commodity sector into a multi-country EMEs' business cycle model where...

Bolivia has achieved noteworthy success over the past 15 years in raising incomes, reducing poverty, and maintaining macroeconomic stability by deploying commodity revenues to finance transfers, public investment, and state-led development, using an exchange rate peg as a policy anchor. However,...

A pseudo-panel approach is used to estimate the returns to schooling (RTS) in Costa Rica. Thisapproach ameliorates the “ability†bias due to the correlation between the level of education and nonobservablecharacteristics of the individual.We found that RTS are higher for older...