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The U.S. food retail sector has experienced substantial change in market concentration over the last three decades. To understand how the change in concentration might impact consumers, researchers would ideally focus on geographic markets that mimic where consumers actually shop. This report investigates the changes in food retailing market concentration at the national, State, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), and county levels in the United States from 1990 to 2019, using data from the National Establishment Time Series dataset. The research finds that food-retailing market concentration at the county level is much higher than estimates of concentration using national-level data. Food retailing markets in rural and small nonmetro counties are considerably more concentrated than food retailing markets in metro and large nonmetro counties. Further, the study documents a significant rise in food retailing market concentration in the United States over the last three decades, at the national level as well as the State, MSA, and county levels during the period. Finally, the study shows that when excluding the largest food retailer, the concentration in retailing at the national and State level, markets would have been lower, but at the MSA and county level, markets would have been higher for most of the period analyzed.

Household businesses make up the majority of firms in developing economies. This paper uses a novel tax census database that covers the universe of tax-registered household businesses to analyze the entry and exit of owner-operated firms in Vietnam during January 2018 to August 2020. It documents new stylized facts about the survival dynamics of informal businesses. First, the entry and exit rates were about 5-6 percent a year for tax-registered household businesses during the pre-pandemic period. Second, an additional 25 percent of household businesses suspended their activity in a year on average, with the annual suspension duration exceeding 2.5 months. The suspension rate spiked to 40 percent during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Third, the findings show that the pandemic-related effects were more pronounced for businesses dependent on face-to-face interactions with customers and suppliers. However, these effects were short lived, and activity and earnings rebounded by August 2020. The findings may reflect the relatively short COVID-19 distress in Vietnam during the first phase of the pandemic, but they illuminate both the vulnerabilities and resilience of the household business sector.

Cross-border capital flows are expected to lead to increased international risk sharing by facilitating borrowing and lending in global financial markets. This paper examines risk-sharing outcomes of various types of capital flows (foreign direct investment, portfolio equity, debt, remittance, and aid flows) in a large sample of emerging market and developing economies. The results suggest that remittances and aid flows are associated with increased international risk sharing. Other types of capital flows are not consistently correlated with better risk-sharing outcomes. These findings are robust to the use of different econometric specifications, country-specific characteristics, and other controls.

The early COVID-19 pandemic literature focused on the conflict between lives and livelihoods. But cross-country evidence reveals that across countries high mortality rates were often associated with large gross domestic product contractions. This paper shows that the presumed trade-off was associated with lockdowns as the primary instrument of containment. Early transition from lockdowns to testing-tracing-isolation-based containment softened the trade-off within countries and explains the absence of a trade-off across countries. The analysis finds that testing had positive indirect effects on growth and perhaps even positive direct effects. By allowing countries to relax shutdowns without compromising on containment, testing could have indirectly contributed to about a 0.6 percentage point boost in growth. By infusing greater confidence in people to step out and engage in economic activity, testing could have added another 0.6 percentage point to growth. As the world struggles to scale up vaccination in the face of new waves and variants, continued emphasis on testing could help limit infection without recourse to costly lockdowns.

Investment growth in emerging market and developing economies has slowed sharply since 2010. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the causes and implications of this slowdown and presents a menu of policy responses to improve investment growth. It reports four main results. First, the slowdown has been broad-based and most pronounced in the largest emerging markets and in commodity exporters. Second, it reflects a range of obstacles: weak activity, negative terms-of-trade shocks, declining foreign direct investment inflows, elevated private debt burdens, heightened political risk, and adverse spillovers from major economies. Third, by slowing capital accumulation and technological progress embedded in investment, weak post-crisis investment growth has contributed to sluggish growth of potential output in recent years. Finally, although specific policy priorities depend on country circumstances, policymakers can boost investment both directly, through public investment, and indirectly, by encouraging private investment, including foreign direct investment, and by undertaking measures to improve overall growth prospects and the business climate.

This paper examines the behavior of remittances over the business cycle and their potential to act as a stabilizer during periods of high business cycle volatility. Four main findings are reported. First, in theory, the cyclical behavior of remittances depends on the motives to remit. Second, remittances are less volatile than other foreign currency flows but do not appear to systemically co-move with business cycle fluctuations. Third, remittances are relatively stable even during episodes of sharp business cycle volatility, such as those associated with sudden stops and financial crises. Finally, remittances can help support consumption stability over the business cycle.

Does financial liberalization increase consumption risk sharing? Yes. This thesis develops a well-defined empirical framework and provides empirical evidence that more financial liberalization improves consumption smoothing, although the relationship is nonlinear and the extent of consumption risk sharing depends on the actual level of impediments to trade in foreign capital. On the other hand, increased cross-country productivity correlations provide fewer incentives for risk sharing and may deteriorate consumption smoothing., The benefits of sharing risks can go beyond having a smooth consumption. This thesis builds a model of global portfolio diversification which links financial liberalization and industrial specialization. This is an important contribution since standard models of international macro lack mechanisms linking financial openness and industrial specialization. As financial liberalization creates more risk sharing opportunities, agents in an economy are able to shift risks. This insurance permits them to engage in risky activities that they would not otherwise undertake, and will benefit from higher growth opportunities. In return, output volatility will increase and cross-country output correlations will decline. The model also shows that consumption smoothing and portfolio home bias can be affected by both cross-country and cross-sector productivity shock correlations.