In a general equilibrium in which bribe-extracting bureaucrats can endogenously choose regulatory burden and delay, the effective (not just nominal) red tape and bribery can be positively correlated across firms. Using data from three worldwide firm surveys, this paper finds evidence consistent...

The degree of an economy’s monetization, which has an important implication on economic growth, can be affected by the conduct of monetary policy, financial sector reform, and episodes of financial crises. The paper finds that monetization--measured by the ratio of broad money to nominal...

This paper investigates the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Libya during the period 1970–2010. The empirical results vary with estimation methodology and model specification, but indicate the lack of long-run relationship between financial...

We assess the spot price forecasting performance of 10 commodity futures at various horizons up to two years and test whether this performance is affected by market conditions. We reject efficient markets based on in-sample tests but, out-of-sample, we find that the forecast from the futures...

This paper uses an econometric model of residential property prices in Hong Kong SAR to assess the effectiveness of alternative policies in slowing the increase in property prices. The rapid rise in property prices is well explained by macroconomic fundamentals; real GDP per capital, real...

Using data from Argentina, Australia, Colombia, El Salvador, Peru, and the United States, we identify three types of threshold effects when assessing the impact of economic activity on nonperforming loans (NPLs). For advanced financial systems showing low NPLs, there is an embedded...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the response of labor productivity to the arrival of new inventions. The benchmark measure of technological progress is given by data on patent applications in the U.S. over the period 1889-2002. The analysis shows that labor productivity may temporarily...

Rodriguez and Rodrik (2000) argue that the relation between openness and growth is still an open question. One of the main problems in the assessment of the effect is the endogeneity of the relation. In order to address this issue, this paper applies the identification through heteroskedasticity...