The latest World Bank estimates of real GDP per capita for China are significantly lower than previous ones.  We review possible sources of this puzzle and conclude that it reflects a combination of factors, including substitution bias in consumption, reliance on urban prices which we estimate...

Stochastic learning models provide sharp predictions about equilibrium selection when the noise level of the learning process is taken to zero.  The difficulty is that, when the noise is extremely small, it can take an extremely long time for a large population to reach the stochastically...

Traditional methods for analyzing portfolio returns often rely on multifactor risk assessment, and tests of significance are typically based on variants of the t-test.  This approach has serious limitations when analyzing the returns from dynamically traded portfolios that include derivative...

Shipping goods internationally is risky and takes time.  To allocate risk and to finance the time gap between production and sale, a range of payment contracts is utilized.  I study the optimal choice between these payment contracts and their implications for trade.  The equilibrium contract...

I present a trade model featuring North-South differences in demand for quality and in quality of task supply.  The model explains a number of stylised facts: Southern firms charge higher factory-gate prices for their products in rich than in poor, and in distant than in near markets.  The...

This paper explores the interactions between external trade and regional disparities in the Italian economy since unification.  It argues that the advantage of the North was initially based on natural advantage (in particular the endowment of water, intensive in silk production).  From 1880...

There is widespread disagreement about the role of housing wealth in explaining consumption.  This paper exploits liquid and illiquid wealth time series from household balance sheet data for South Africa, previously constructed by the authors, to explain fluctuations in the ratios of...

This paper shows how to derive a complete set of optimality conditions characterising the solution to a dynamic optimal income tax problem in the spirit of Mirrlees (1971), under the assumption that a 'first-order' approach to incentive compatibility is valid.  The method relies on constructing...

Disinflationary episodes are a valuable source of information for economic agents trying to learn about the economy.  This paper is especially interested in how a policymaker can themselves learn by disinflating.  The approach differs from the existing literature, which typically focuses on...

This paper defines regular and weakly regular equilibria for monotone Bayesian games with one-dimensional actions and types.  It proves an index theorem and provides applications to uniqueness of equilibrium.  It also provides analyses of stability with respect to perturbations and dynamic...