This paper tests empirically the theoretical prediction that the country premium paid by emerging economies on sovereign debt increases with the amount of debt up to a certain critical level, above which the supply of foreign funds becomes fixed. The results confirm this theoretical prediction....

Crowding-out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the...

This paper argues that opening up an economy to trade can result in welfare reducing deindustrialization when agents are subject to credit constraints. The standard interpretation of such deindustrialization as a reallocation of resources across sectors with no aggregate long-term adverse...

Following a period of privatization and restructuring, commercial banks in Central and Eastern Europe and, more recently, in the Balkans have rapidly expanded their lending to the private sector. This paper describes the causes of this expansion, assesses future trends, and evaluates its policy...