New empirical evidence suggests that high levels of income inequality constrain rather than encourage growth. While some explanations involve relationships between inequality and political systems, this paper focuses on the microeconomic behavior of poor households. When returns to labor are...

This paper discusses the ways in which macroeconomic developments can put stress on banks, and in extreme cases lead to banking crises. There are many ways in which this can occur, and no specific mechanism is endorsed. These macroeconomic causes of bank vulnerability and crisis have important...

Policymakers concerned about migration to high-income countries must take into account the political economy of the labor market. Labor market pathologies, like macroeconomic mismanagement, can be extremely costly - severely constraining growth of output and employment and increasing...