Publications des institutions partenaires
The Hausmann–Gorky Effect
On May 26, 2017, Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann published an Op Ed titled "Hunger Bonds", urging investors to avoid Venezuelan sovereign bonds on the grounds that the country was prioritizing payments on the bonds over remedying a humanitarian crisis. Contemporaneously, news emerged regarding a suspicious looking bond issue by Venezuela's oil company that was purchased largely by…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 22/03/2019
Eurobonds past and present: a comparative review on debt mutualization in Europe
This paper reviews the economic and historical literature on debt mutualization in Europe with reference to pre-1914 guaranteed bonds and current Eurobonds debate. We emphasize that, notwithstanding the differences in scale and nature, debt mutualization solutions similar to Eurobonds were tried before, and the closest historical examples to the present debate are the pre-1914…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 09/07/2018
Can countries rely on foreign saving for investment and economic development ?
Contrary to widespread presumption, a surprisingly large number of countries have been able to finance a significant fraction of their investment for extended periods using foreign finance. While many of these episodes are in countries where official finance is important, we also identify episodes where a substantial fraction of domestic investment is financed by private capital…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 15/06/2018
Aggregate uncertainty and sectoral productivity growth: the role of credit constraints
We show that an increase in aggregate uncertainty -measured by stock market volatility- reduces productivity growth more in industries that depend heavily on external finance. The mechanism at play is that during periods of high uncertainty, firms that are credit constrained switch the composition of investment by reducing productivity-enhancing investment- such as on ICT capital-…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 15/06/2018
Financing for development: editor's introduction
In this double issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy we publish a set of papers concerned with the mobilization of domestic and foreign capital in support of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals that were launched in September 2015. The papers were originally presented at a conference on 'Financing for Development' organized by the International Monetary Fund and…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 04/05/2018
The Hausmann-Gorky effect
For over a century, legal scholars have debated the question of what to do about the debts incurred by despotic governments; asking whether successor non-despotic governments should have to pay them. That debate has gone nowhere. This paper examines whether an Op Ed written by Harvard economist, Ricardo Hausmann, in May 2017, may have shown an alternative path to the goal of…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 13/04/2018
DSGE models in the conduct of policy: use as intended
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 27/02/2018
The use of corruption indicators in sovereign ratings
This paper studies the relationship between sovereign ratings and corruption indicators. The paper first shows a strong correlation between ratings issued by the three main rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch) and three commonly used corruption indicators. This correlation is robust to controlling for the fact that corruption is also correlated with level of…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 22/02/2018
Does Greece need more official debt relief? If so, how much?
Creditor countries and international organizations continue to disagree whether Greece should receive additional official debt relief, and if so how much. This paper first shows that these disagreements can be attributed to competing assumptions about Greece's future capacity to repay, particularly about economic growth and the fiscal primary balance. It next evaluates the…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 09/10/2017
The changing international linkages of Switzerland: an overview
Over the last decade, the economic linkages between Switzerland and the rest of the world have been transformed. First, merchanting and the chemical industry account for an increasing share of international trade, with chemicals exports expanding robustly in recent years despite the European crisis and the strong Swiss franc. Second, the nature of international financial integration…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 03/10/2017
Discussion
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 07/04/2017
Introduction: cycling backwards
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 24/02/2017
Minimum wages and firm employment: evidence from China
This paper studies how minimum wage policies affect firm employment in China using a unique county level minimum wage data set matched to disaggregated firm survey data. We investigate both the effect of imposing a minimum wage, and the effect of the policies that tightened enforcement in 2004. We find that the average effect of minimum wage changes is modest and positive, and that…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 24/02/2017
On the roles of different foreign currencies in European bank lending
We draw on a new data set on the use of Swiss francs and other currencies by European banks to assess the patterns of foreign currency bank lending. We show that the patterns differ sharply across foreign currencies. The Swiss franc is used predominantly for lending to residents, especially households. It is sensitive to the interest rate differential, exchange rate developments,…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 24/02/2017
Business-humanitarian partnerships: processes of normative legitimation
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 08/12/2016
Liquidity-driven FDI
We develop a model of foreign direct investment (FDI) in which financially liquid foreign firms acquire liquidity-constrained target firms. Using a large dataset of emerging-market acquisitions, we find evidence supporting three central predictions of the model: (i) firms in external finance dependent and intangible sectors are more likely to be targets of foreign acquisitions; (ii)…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 25/10/2016
Can countries rely on foreign saving for investment and economic development?
A surprisingly large number of countries have been able to finance a significant fraction of domestic investment using foreign finance for extended periods. While many of these episodes are in low-income countries where official finance is more important than private finance, this paper also identifies a number of episodes where a substantial fraction of domestic investment was…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 29/08/2016
Making the next billion demand access: the local content effect of google.co.za in Setswana
Recent attempts to connect the current ‘next billion’ to the Internet in places such as sub-Saharan Africa have not met expectations. In places where Internet infrastructure has come online and prices have gone down, the expected consequent increase in uptake was not observed. I develop a framework that incorporates language in the the two-sided markets framework, viewing differences…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 24/08/2016
The quest to lower high remittance costs to Africa: a brief review of the use of mobile banking and bitcoins
The paper reviews the latest technological tools that arguably can contribute to reducing the excessively high costs of remittance transactions in Africa. Indeed, despite huge remittance inflows to and within the continent, Africa is the most expensive destination to send money to. As remittances have become more important than Overseas Development Assistance and Foreign Direct…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 15/03/2016
Fire-sale FDI or business as usual?
Motivated by a set of stylized facts, we develop a model of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As;) to study foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging markets. We compare acquisitions undertaken during financial crises – so called fire-sale FDI –with acquisitions made during non-crisis periods to examine whether the outcomes differ in the ways predicted by the model.…
Institution partenaire
Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement
English / 11/03/2016
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