• Chapter 1 – Economic Support, Regulatory Forbearance, and Covid-Era Loan Performance: This essay addresses the research question: “What was the impact of Covid-era income support policies and regulatory forbearance policies on expected loan losses in the banking sector?” The originality in this research is that I review IMF narratives of Covid-era policies adopted by countries and encode regulatory forbearance related policies into a dataset of binary indicator variables. Using this data, along with data on Covid-era fiscal policies, I estimate that income support policies and regulatory forbearance on asset quality policies had mitigated approximately at least $200 billion to $380 billion in expected loan losses worldwide.

• Chapter 2 – Covid-19’s Heterogeneous “Push” and “Pull” on Global Capital: This essay addresses the research question: “What was Covid-19’s ‘push’ and ‘pull’ on global portfolio flows?” I use a gravity model of trade in financial assets to analyze Covid-19 as a factor both “pushing” portfolio investment into an economy, and also as a factor “pulling” portfolio investment into an economy. The originality in this research is that I use a system estimation method to incorporate regional heterogeneity into a structural gravity model of trade in financial assets. I find that Covid acted as a negative pull factor on the long-term debt of countries in Asia and the short-term debt of countries in the MENA region. I also find that Covid acted as a negative push factor on the short-term debt from Advanced Economies, but also as a positive push factor on the long-term debt of Advanced Economies, suggesting possible substitution effects. These findings have concrete policy implications, as flows dominated by pull factors can be directly influenced by domestic policy. However, flows dominated by push factors cannot be directly influenced by domestic policy and thus domestic policy should then focus on managing the impact of shocks, such as the Covid-19 shock.

• Chapter 3 – International Capital Mobility and Covid-Era Capital Shocks: This essay addresses the research question: “Is capital mobility a factor in the sudden stops and surges of portfolio flows?” In theory, countries where capital is more internationally mobile should be more likely to experience a sudden stop or sudden surge in capital, especially following a shock such as Covid-19. The originality in this research is that I consider the interaction between capital mobility and the country risk premium in my analysis. I find that capital mobility reduces the probability a country suffers a sudden stop of portfolio debt, and also stops and surges of equities. However, this effect of capital mobility is offset by an increasing country risk premium (the difference between the central bank policy rate and the U.S. Federal Funds rate). To reduce the probability of a stop or surge in capital flows, rather than pursue a capital controls which curtail capital mobility, the empirical results of this essay suggest policies reducing the country risk premium would reduce the likelihood of a surge or stop of portfolio flows while allowing a country to continue to reap the benefits of foreign investment.