On a long-ago summer night in the country, an old man and a little boy stop at a railroad crossing to watch and listen as a freight train roars past and then disappears into the quiet night. This poetic and evocative picture book is perfect for reading aloud. Full color.

The international financial system has come under strain several times in recent years, and analysis has shown that most crises originated from the risks built into cross-border exposures. Assessment and monitoring of cross-border exposures and country risk are essential activities for international lending agencies such as government bodies, banks, multinational corporations and other investors. Inadequate risk management could have a destabilising effect on both lender and borrower and could result in a major international financial crisis. This completely revised edition of Thomas E Krayenbuehl's classic handbook clearly shows how the various players can quantify and manage the complex factors involved in order to minimise the risk and avoid potentially catastrophic consequences. It provides both a rigorous analysis of the current situation and a guide to meeting the challenges of the future. Just some of the things you'll discover. How to succeed in cross-border lending and investment through good assessment, monitoring and hedging of country risk How the Tequila and Asian crises came about, and the lessons learned The likelihood of future crises and the potential causes The latest problems to beset the international financial system The recent developments in cross-border financing Why the problem of contagion occurs between seemingly unrelated markets The enormous need for global capital to bring about sustainable economic development in the developing world, and the role of the major players in fulfilling it The numerous factors that constitute and influence a specific country risk The responsibilities of all the parties involved, from the IMF and the World Bank to the industrialised and developing nations, the regulators and the rating agencies How this study helps you: This lucid and authoritative handbook will help you to: Understand the problems facing the international financial system Identify and assess new investment opportunities Optimise risk composition of cross-border lending or investment Make sound decisions, minimise risk and achieve better outcomes The definitive study of this important topic - its purpose, practice and implications

In The Complete History of Cross-Country Running, author Andrew Boyd Hutchinson captures the full history of cross-country running, from the early 1800s to the present day, on both a national and international scale. It includes chronicles of legendary teams, inspirational tales of achievement, controversies, and interviews with record-breaking runners past and present. From Walter George and Alfred Shrubb to Steve Prefontaine, Bill Rogers, and Galen Rupp—and everyone in between—Hutchinson uncovers all angles, via training logs, discussions with coaches, and the review of newspaper archives for race results and forgotten storylines. He offers commentary from Olympians such as David Torrence and Shannon Rowbury, amongst others. Along the way, the book addresses the following topics: • How cross country began in England • How the sport found its way to American colleges and universities • The birth of the International Cross-Country Championships • All the close events, including the 2012 race between Molly Huddle and Sara Hall at the US National Cross-Country Championship • And so much more!

This paper uses the Global VAR (GVAR) model proposed by Pesaran et al. (2004) to study cross-country linkages among euro area countries, other advanced European countries (including the Nordics, the UK, etc.), and the Central, Eastern and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries. An innovative feature of the paper is the use of combined trade and financial weights (based on BIS reporting banks’ external position data) to capture the very close trade and financial ties of the CESEE countries with the advanced Europe countries. The results show strong co-movements in output growth and interest rates but weaker linkages bewteen inflation and real credit growth within Europe. While the euro area is the dominant source of economic influences, there are also interesting subregional linkages, e.g. between the Nordic and the Baltic countries, and a small but notable impact of CESEE countries on the rest of the Europe.

We examine whether the cross-country incidence and severity of the 2008-2009 global recession is systematically related to pre-crisis macroeconomic and financial factors. We find that the pre-crisis level of development, increases in the ratio of private credit to GDP, current account deficits, and openness to trade are helpful in understanding the intensity of the crisis. International risk sharing did little to shield domestic demand from the country-specific component of output declines, while those countries with large pre-crisis current account deficits saw domestic demand fall by much more than domestic output during the crisis.

This paper estimates an empirical nonstationary panel regression model that tests long-run consumption risk sharing across a sample of OECD and emerging market (EM) countries. This is in contrast to the existing literature on consumption risk sharing, which is mainly about risks at business cycle frequency. Since our methodology focuses on identifying cointegrating relationships while allowing for arbitrary short-run dynamics, we can obtain a consistent estimate of long-run risk sharing while disregarding any short-run nuisance factors. Our results show that long-run risk sharing in OECD countries increased more than that in EM countries during the past two decades.

This paper identifies policies to increase productivity in the East, reduce regional income disparities, and promote overall income convergence. Achieving this objective will require improving educational attainment and reducing skill mismatches in the East, scaling up public infrastructure to attract investment to less productive regions, and facilitating labor mobility. This paper also discusses female labor participation in Poland and the potential impact on bank profitability of the recently implemented bank asset tax. Poland’s population is aging, yet it has an important underused source of qualified labor—its women. For Poland to unleash its full economic potential, it needs to embrace the vital contribution that women can make to its economy.

This paper revisits the issue of cross-country spillovers from fiscal consolidations using an innovative empirical methodology. We find evidence in support of fiscal spillovers in 10 euro area countries. Fiscal consolidation in one country not only reduces domestic output (direct effect), but also the output of other member countries (indirect/spillover effect). Fiscal spillovers are larger for: (i) more closely located and economically integrated countries, and (ii) fiscal shocks originating from relatively larger countries. On average, 1 percent of GDP fiscal consolidation in 10 euro area countries reduces the combined output by 0.6 percent on impact, out of which half is driven by indirect effects from fiscal spillovers. The impact peters out and becomes insignificant over the medium-term. It is largely driven by tax measures, which have a relatively stronger effect on output compared to expenditure measures. The results are robust to alternative measures of bilateral links across countries.