We explore the impact of major labor and product market reforms on current account dynamics using a new 'narrative' database of major changes in employment protection for regular workers and product market regulation for non-manufacturing industries covering 26 advanced economies over the past...

Cross-country differences in economic resilience-in an economy's ability to withstand and adjust to shocks-remain significant in the euro area. In part, the differences reflect the lack of a national nominal exchange rate as a mechanism to adjust to shocks. The IMF staff has argued that...

This paper explores the short-term employment effect of deregulating job protection forregular workers and how it varies with prevailing business cycle conditions. We apply a localprojection method to a newly constructed 'narrative' dataset of major regular job protectionreforms covering 26...

Many emerging market and developing economies face a difficult trade-off between economic support and fiscal sustainability. Market-oriented structural reforms ease this trade-off by promoting economic growth and strengthening public finances. The empirical analysis in this note, based on 62...

We analyze the relation between the increase in inequality and the observed trends in intergenerational mobility in the U.S. in the last three decades. As an empirical contribution, we document a significant increase in the intergenerational elasticity of earnings, both at the family level and...

The large differences in income per capita across countries are mostly explained by differences total factor productivity (TFP). What explains differences in TFP across countries? Evidence suggests that the (mis)allocation of factors of production across heterogenous production units is an...

The large differences in income per capita across countries are mostly accounted for by differences in total factor productivity (TFP). What explains these differences in TFP across countries? Evidence suggests that the (mis)allocation of factors of production across heterogenous production...