Using administrative universal firm registration data as well as primary offline and online surveys of small business owners in China, we examine (i) whether the digitization of business operations helps small and medium enterprises (SMEs) better cope with the pandemic shock, and (ii) if the pandemi...

This paper employs a difference-in-differences approach and a pair of new datasets on government spending and economic activity compiled by the World Bank to examine the local impacts of the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor in Pakistan.

China is the world’s largest official creditor, but we lack basic facts about the terms and conditions of its lending. Very few contracts between Chinese lenders and their government borrowers have ever been published or studied. This paper is the first systematic analysis of the legal terms of Chin...

Over the past decade, China has provided billions of dollars in concessional and non-concessional finance to countries around the world. In light of these trends, both researchers and pundits have focused on China’s motivations for allocating development finance, particularly in Africa, due to debt ...

As the world’s largest bilateral donor responsible for managing around $20 billion in annual funding, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has a particular responsibility to take an evidence-informed approach to its work. It also has a congressional mandate to do so.

The Biden administration can restore the US government’s reputation as a global leader on gender equality—and take it to the next level through employing an intersectional lens.

The Biden administration has a unique window to capitalize on pro-transparency sentiment at home, and the reform momentum abroad, to implement a series of much-needed updates to the US domestic financial transparency apparatus.