We study the consequences of "regime-induced" exchange rate depreciations by comparing outcomes for peggers versus floaters to the US dollar in response to a dollar depreciation. Pegger currencies depreciate relative to floater currencies and these depreciations are strongly expansionary. The...

In contrast to earlier recessions, the monetary regimes of many small economies have not changed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. This is due in part to the fact that many small economies continue to use hard exchange rate fixes, a reasonably durable regime. However, most of the...

We take a first pass at quantifying the magnitudes of debt relief achieved through default and restructuring in two distinct samples: 1979-2010, focusing on credit events in emerging markets, and 1920-1939, documenting the official debt hangover in advanced economies that was created by World...

In this paper we first trace the changing nature of banking, currency and debt crises from the last century to the present. Each type of crisis has transmogrified in the presence of official intervention and the creation of a safety net. A similar pattern is observed for international rescue...

In Canada, a policy aiming at helping single parents on social assistance become self-reliant was implemented on an experimental basis. The Self-Sufficiency Entry Effects Demonstration randomly selected a sample of 4,134 single parents who had applied for welfare between January 1994 and March...

This paper uses the control function to develop a framework for testing for selection bias. The idea behind our framework is if the usual assumptions hold for matching or IV estimators, the control function identifies the presence and magnitude of potential selection bias. Averaging this...

This paper considers the problem of making inferences about the effects of a program on multiple outcomes when the assignment of treatment status is imperfectly randomized. By imperfect randomization we mean that treatment status is reassigned after an initial randomization on the basis of...

The COVID-19 epidemic in emerging markets risks a combined health, economic, and debt crisis. We integrate a standard epidemiology model into a sovereign default model and study how default risk impacts the ability of these countries to respond to the epidemic. Lockdown policies are useful for...

Using a novel, high frequency dataset on capital control actions in 16 emerging market economies (EMEs) from 2001 to 2012, we provide new insights into the domestic and multilateral effects of capital controls. Increases in capital account openness reduce monetary policy autonomy and increase...