infonet-economy

Countries with large debts stocks are vulnerable to the vagaries of the markets. Confidence crises can arise out of nowhere, constricting access to the markets. Hence, the question arises as to whether these countries should put in place mechanisms that will help them better prepare for the possibility of crisis. In effect, the choice is whether to buy insurance. The cost of buying…

Since the early 2000s, many Latin American countries achieved remarkable economic growth coupled with poverty and inequality reduction, largely due to the pursuit of a centuries-old pattern of commodity exports. The end of the commodity price super-cycle in 2014 puts some of these development gains in jeopardy, raising anxiety among emerging middle classes wary of slipping back into…

The Swiss Federal government finances are in an excellent shape: debt is small (and decreasing), and carries a low interest rate. This paper reviews the prospects for the Swiss finances drawing on the recent literature. We argue that the current policy of running surpluses and paying down the debt is inefficient, and propose three alternatives. First, as the interest rate on the debt…

The online trading platform Alibaba provides financial technology (FinTech) credit for millions of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Using an internal credit score threshold that governs the allocation of credit, we apply a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to explore the causal effect of credit access on firm volatility. We find that credit access significantly…

The ECB might seem to be the most independent central bank in the world. Its statutes were carefully designed to ensure independence and they are enshrined in an international treaty. Yet, while serving many governments may be a protection, it can also act as a constraint on policy decisions. This essay explains how the ECB has faced limits during the Eurozone crisis. First, it had…

An ongoing active debate considers the role of the Global Financial Cycle (GFC) in driving international capital flows - especially in emerging economies - as well as the policy options available to absorb their impact. We make two contributions to the debate. First, we rely on a structural measure of the GFC developed in a companion paper to identify episodes of large capital flows…