An enduring puzzle for scholars of Latin American policy reform asks how policy makers push through reforms with short term costs but long term benefits in mass democracies. Many answers have been given, including international pressures, cultural and ideational factors, the nature of political...

This paper is about the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, between 1947 and 1982. The paper has the form of a conversation between the two authors and covers issues such as the existence of a “Chicago School,” the Department’s governance, the personalities of some...

The volatility premium is a well-documented phenomenon, which can be approximated by the difference between the previous month level of the VIX Index and the rolling 30-day close-to-close volatility. In concordance with existing literature, we show evidence that VIX is generally above the 30-day...

How does the process of applying knowledge to the economy work? How do people innovate? What is inside the innovation black box? Can the process be stylized? We apply an economic approach to creativity which provides a general analytical framework to innovation to answer these questions by...