This paper argues that the limited ability to help developing countries in a crisis should shift the focus to policies helping in reducing the ex ante probability of crises. Indirectly, such policies would also alleviate the depths of realized crises. Two specific ideas are explored:...

Up to the financial slump of the second quarter of 2008 commodity prices grew fast for several consecutive years in a highly volatile context. Recent commodity fluctuations have raised both policy concerns and a prolific academic debate. This paper offers a coherent theoretical and empirical...

Against the background of continued growth disappointments, depressed inflation expectations, and declining real equilibrium interest rates, a number of central banks have implemented negative interest rate policies (NIRP) to provide additional monetary policy stimulus over the past few years....

This paper analyzes the relationship between functional income distribution aggregate demand and economic growth in five Central American countries; Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama for the period 1970-2016. It estimates the effects of a change in the wage share on...

In a classic article, Granger (1966) asserted that most economic time series measured in level have spectra that exhibit a smooth declining shape with considerable power at very low frequencies. There has been no systematic attempt to examine Granger,s assertion with international data. We...

We estimate output growth rate spectra for 58 countries. The spectra exhibit diverse shapes. To study the sources of this diversity, we estimate the short-run, business cycle, and long-run frequency components of the sampled series. For most OECD countries the bulk of the spectral mass is in the...

This paper empirically studies the effects of fiscal policy shocks on private consumption. Further, it tries to determine if the initial conditions of the economy, such as the financing needs of the government or previous fiscal deficits, affect that relationship. We use yearly data between 1970...

Since the 1960's, the EU has offered trade preferences to developing countries in a complex set of systems. Broadly these systems can be divided into preferences for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, Mediterranean preferences and the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). We...

We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (IIH). The results confirm a non-linear positive relation between economic resources and health,...

Good health is crucial for human and economic development. In particular poor health in childhood seems to be of utmost concern since it causes irreversible damage and have implications later in life. Recent research suggests globalization is a strong force affecting adult and child health...