We identify periods of mildly explosive dynamics and collapses in the stock markets of 18 major countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. We find statistical evidence of instability transmission from the Chinese stock market to all other markets. The recovery is heterogeneous and generally non-explosive.

We analyze the second-moment properties of the components of international capital flows and their relationship to business cycle variables (output, investment, and real interest rate) in 22 industrial and emerging countries. Total inward flows are procyclical with respect to all three macro variables. Net outward flows are countercyclical with respect to output and investment in most industrial and emerging countries. Disaggregated inward flows positively comove with output in industrial countries and with investment and the real interest rate in the G7 economies. Inward foreign direct investment is the only non-procyclical type of inward capital flows (with respect to output) in the developing economies. Formal statistical tests based on nonparametric bootstrap techniques detect significant variance increases in all G7 countries' disaggregated capital flows over exogenous and endogenously estimated breaks.

The recent financial crisis has focused attention on the relationship between access to finance and international trade, triggering a burgeoning segment of the literature evaluating this link empirically. We review the role of finance in international trade and the main theories connecting them. Moreover, we provide a structured road map to recent empirical studies while summarizing what we have learned to date about this relationship. We separately analyze studies that rely on aggregate, industry-level, and firm-level data, emphasizing the differences between those that analyze ordinary times and those that focus on banking and financial crises. We discuss the role of diverse measures of access to finance, financial health, and financial vulnerability along with the key challenges in estimating the relationship between trade and finance. We conclude that once the heterogeneity of methodologies and measures of access to and dependence on finance is accounted for, the empirical literature suggests an important role for finance in determining export participation at the extensive margin but weaker results for the intensive margin of trade. Moreover, while empirical studies tend to favor a causal relationship moving from finance to trade, there is some evidence suggesting causality moving in the opposite direction, which merits further investigation.JEL Classification: D92, F12, F36.

We analyze the second-moment properties of the components of international capital flows and their relationship to business cycle variables (output, investment, and real interest rate) in 22 industrial and emerging countries. Total inward flows are procyclical with respect to all three macro variables. Net outward flows are countercyclical with respect to output and investment in most industrial and emerging countries. Disaggregated inward flows positively comove with output in industrial countries and with investment and the real interest rate in the G7 economies. Inward foreign direct investment is the only non-procyclical type of inward capital flows (with respect to output) in the developing economies. Formal statistical tests based on nonparametric bootstrap techniques detect significant variance increases in all G7 countries' disaggregated capital flows over exogenous and endogenously estimated breaks.