Understanding the workings of whole economies is essential for sound policy advice - but not necessarily for accurate forecasts.  Structural models play a major role at most central banks and many other governmental agencies, yet almost none forecast the financial crisis and ensuing...

Information asymmetries constitute a significant obstacle to capital flows across international borders, and in particular to flows of foreign investment (FDI) to emerging markets.  Many governments aim to reduce information barriers by emerging in investment promotion activities.  Despite...

Between the 1870s and World War II, falls in world shipping costs and Western industrialisation gave rise to export-led Southeast Asian growth and specialization in a narrow range of primary commodity exports.  A linked development was the emergence of a few dominant Southeast Asian urban...

This article investigates whether vote-buying and the instigation of violence in the disputed 2007 Kenyan elections were strategically motivated, and whether those affected by electoral violence changed their views towards ethno-politics and the use of violence.  To answer these questions, a...

We investigate the impact of short-term weather and long-term climate on self-reported life satisfaction using panel data. We find robust evidence that day-to-day weather variation impacts life satisfaction by a similar magnitude to acquiring a mild disability. Utilizing two sources of variation...

Important gaps remain in the understanding of the economic consequences of civil war.  Focusing on the conflict in Rwanda in the early 90s, and using micro data to carry out econometric analysis, this paper finds that households and localities that experience more intense conflict are lagging...

We study in-group favouritism and out-group discrimination in a multiplayer dictator game.  An allocator divides a large sum of money among three groups of 20 recipients each and Self.  Allocations to groups are divided equally among the group members.  The three groups are supporters of the...

When consumers are forward-looking with respect to their demand for a habit-forming good, traditional measures of price elasticity are misleading.  In particular, such measures will underestimate sensitivity to long-run shifts - and therefore underestimate the potential effect of policy...

The size of adverse selection and moral hazard effects in health insurance markets has important policy implications.  For example, if adverse selection effects are small while moral hazard effects are large, conventional remedies for inefficiencies created by adverse selection (e.g., mandatory...

This study investigates the impact of joint-stock banks on the rationalisation of the British interwar steel industry.  A new panel data set of steel firm characteristics covering 1920 to 1938 is used to document rationalization and bank involvement, including interlocking directorships, with...