Based on an original database, this paper provides an empirical study of Tsarist bond prices reactions after their repudiation by the Soviets. For the two years following the repudiation two striking features of a representative Tsarist bond traded in Paris are highlighted: first, the price...

This paper explores theoretically and empirically the link between Financial Liberalization (FL) and the banking crisis that often follow. We also investigate the proposition, classical in development economics, that FL should result in an increase in supply of funds to the real sector. To...

In this paper we attempt to identify the characteristics of banks that are most likely to be at the origin of a banking crisis following a financial liberalization (FL) process. We do this analysis in response to the observed fact that FL processes arse often followed by banking crisis that cost...

This paper examines Keynes's thoughts on the economic causes of war. Though an issue upon which the classical economists and their popularisers wrote much, the links between economics and war has become, beyond an unthinking acceptance of the pacific qualities of free trade, an issue largely...

This paper tells you everything you need to know in order to impress your friends with your knowledge of the most famous people and the useful past of the subject of economics. However, it is recommended that this paper should not be read in the company of anyone who reads dusty old books, and...

In this paper I look in some detail at one specific aspect of macro distribution theories, namely Keynes's Macro theory of profits.

This study assesses debt sustainability in South Africa allowing for possible nonlinearities in the form of threshold behaviour by fiscal authorities. A long historical data series on the debt-to-GDP ratio and models with fixed and time-varying thresholds allowing the level of debt to vary...

We present a model in which a conservative incumbent with preferences for low public spending can strategically run a budget deficit to prevent the left-wing opposition candidate from choosing high public spending if elected, and possibly also to ensure his own reelection. We find that the...

This paper is a review of the different approaches on external debt sustainability. The Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative was launched to assure a permanent exit from debt dependence. However, the IMF-World Bank program is not without faults, in particular for what concerns debt...

The purposes of this paper are twofold: first, it aims at critically evaluating the solvency criterion, pioneered by Hamilton and Flavin (1986), which is nowadays almost hegemonic in the analysis of public debt sustainability, and at illustrating alternative measures of sustainability grounded...