This departmental paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism in the Asia Pacific region, Latin America, and Caribbean countries. Many tourism dependent economies in these regions, including small states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, entered the pandemic with limited fiscal space, inadequate external buffers, and foreign exchange revenues extremely concentrated in tourism. The empirical analysis leverages on an augmented gravity model to draw lessons from past epidemics and finds that the impact of infectious diseases on tourism flows is much greater in developing countries than in advanced economies.

This paper studies the evolution of the exchange rates of sub-Saharan African currencies in the context of the global financial crisis. In particular, it analyzes the reasons behind the differences in the magnitude and volatility of the exchange rates among countries. To this end, it takes a sample of seven countries, four members of the East African Community (EAC) (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda), and three others, which experienced large exchange rate losses at the onset of the crisis: Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. First, it analyzes the movements of the exchange rates with respect to the U.S. dollar and two other major currencies. Second, it tries to link the magnitude of their movements to key factors, relating to the external environment and the countries’ internal policies.