This paper shows that the presence of quotas on imported inputs that are based on installed capacity can lead to capacity underutilization in manufacturing industries of developing countries. A replacement of such quotas, by tariffs leads to full capacity utilization under assumptions of both...

This paper develops a public education scheme that takes uncertainty aspects of private educational investments explicitly into account. In the author’s framework, the social merits of public education schemes are related to the lack of markets in which students can insure against educational...

The paper considers gains from international economic policy coordination when there is uncertainty concerning the functioning of the world economy, but also learning about the “true” model on the part of policymakers. The paper reports estimates of plausible alternative versions of a...

The relationship between current account developments and changes in the macroeconomic environment remains a key issue in open economy macroeconomics. This paper extends the standard intertemporal optimizing model of the current account to incorporate the effects of macroeconomic uncertainty on...

We study the effects of permanent and temporary income shocks on precautionary saving and investment in a ""store-or-sow"" model of growth. High volatility of permanent shocks results in high precautionary saving in the safe asset and low investment, or a ""volatility trap."" Namely, big savers...

International macroeconomic policy coordination is generally considered to be made less likely—and less profitable—by the presence of uncertainty about how the economy works. The present paper provides a counter-example, in which increased uncertainty about portfolio preference of investors...