There are extensive literatures within economics and economic psychology on the allocation of household income within the household.  These two literatures are largely disjoint but both use a concept of 'income pooling'.  In economics this refers to the independence of household decisions from...

This paper uses micro data from the Indonesian Census of Manufacturing to analyze the causal relationship between foreign ownership and various aspects of plant performance.  It examines the implications of foreign ownership in three different contexts: entry of foreign investors through...

Are foundations of models of ambiguity-sensitive preferences too flawed to be usefully applied to economic models?  Al-Najjar and Weinstein (2009) say such is indeed the case.  In this paper, first, we point out that many of the key arguments by Al-Najjar and Weinstein do not apply to quite a...

Little is known about the possible impact of an influenza pandemic on a nation's economy.  We applied the UK macroeconomic model 'COMPACT' to epidemiological data on previous UK influenza pandemics, and extrapolated a sensitivity analysis to cover more extreme disease scenarios.  Analysis...

Most econometric schemes to allow for heterogeneity in micro behaviour have two drawbacks: they do not fit the data and they rule out interesting economic models.  In this paper we consider the time homogeneous first order Markov (HFOM) model that allows for maximal heterogeneity.  That is,...

We consider optimal monetary and fiscal policies in a New Keynesian model of a small open economy with sticky prices and wages.  In this benchmark setting monetary policy is all we need - analytical results demonstrate that variations in government spending should play no role in the...

After 9/11, the United States and its allies took measures to protect their citizens from future terrorist attacks.  While these measures aim to increase security, they have often been criticized for violating human rights.  But violating rights is difficult in a constitutional democracy with...

Do better trade logistics reduce trade costs, raising a country's exports?  Yes, but the magnitude of the effect depends on country size.  Applying a new gravity model to a comprehensive logistics index, we find that an average-sized country would raise exports by about 46% after a...

This paper investigates structural change in Argentina between 1900 and 1973.  It has been argued that trade policy under import-substituting industrialization disfavoured agriculture and led to a "technological lag" in the sector, and that this explains agriculture's relative decline during a...

We present a gravity model that accounts for multilateral resistance, firm heterogeneity and country-selection into trade, while accommodating asymmetries in trade flows.  A new equation for the proportion of exporting firms takes a gravity form: the extensive margin is also affected by...