manufacturing industries, 99 countries, 1991-2007, extending Rajan-Zingales (1998). We utilize externalfinance dependence measures in a series of cross-sectional regressions of manufacturing industries’growth rates covering 17 years. Net portfolio debt inflows are negatively associated...

This paper evaluates the sustainability of large current account imbalances in the era when the Chinese GDP growth rate and current account/GDP exceed 10%. We investigate the size distribution and the durability of current account deficits during 1966-2005, and report the results of a simulation...

The evolution of institutions in the US and other unions provides clear lessons. There are large gains from buffering currency unions with a union-wide deposit insurance, and partial debt mutualisation. The credibility of a union deposit insurance scheme requires transparent funding and...

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 studies the empirical and theoretical association between the duration of a pegged exchange rate and the cost experienced upon exiting the regime. We confirm empirically that exits from pegged exchange rate regimes during the past two decades have often been accompanied by crises, the...

In this paper we evaluate the current account patterns of China and Germany. Wepoint out that China's current account surplus as a share of global GDP in recent yearsresembles that of Germany’s. Yet, an important difference is that the Euro block’scurrent account inclusive of...

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...

The onset of the US credit crisis in 2008, and its rapid globalization induced the FED to extend unprecedented swap-lines of 30 billion dollars to four emerging markets, and the proliferation of other cross-countries selective swap arrangements. This paper explores the logic for these...