The authors investigate the theoretical effects of lobbying and pressure group activities on both economic efficiency and on equity. Looking at lobbying as a political activity that takes place alongside production, they find that lobbies may generate economic inefficiency as part of the process...

In recent years the term "fear of floating" has been used to describe exchange rate regimes that, while officially flexible, in practice intervene heavily to avoid sudden or large depreciations. However, the data reveals that in most cases (and increasingly so in the 2000s) intervention has been...

Populist movements, parties and leaders have gained influence in many countries, disrupting long-established patterns of party competition, impugning the legitimacy of representative institutions and sometimes actively weakening or coarsening government capabilities. By positing an acute...

This paper revisits the standard explanations of the violent Chilean protests of late 2019, and in particular their exclusive focus on the role of inequality, which in fact had been falling prior to the emergence of unrest. Instead, we suggest that blame may lie in a crisis of trust in...

Motivations for introducing a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) could range from a rapid decline in the use of physical cash or financial inclusion strategies to an underdeveloped retail payment market. The COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of global stablecoins proposals have...