This paper is the first to examine the spillover effects of regional conflicts, defined as internal or external armed conflicts in contiguous states, on international trade. Our empirical findings—based on different measures of regional conflict constructed using alternate definitions of...

China's urban household saving rate has increased markedly since the mid-1990s and the age-savings profile has become U-shaped. To understand these patterns, we analyze a panel of urban Chinese households over the period 1989–2009. We document a sharp increase in income uncertainty, largely...

Economic policies are often judged by a handful of statistics, some of which may be biased during periods of change. We estimate the income growth implied by the evolution of food demand and durable good ownership in post-reform Brazil and Mexico, and find that changes in consumption patterns...

We identify structural breaks in economic growth in 140 countries and use these to define “growth spells:” periods of high growth preceded by an upbreak and ending either with a downbreak or with the end of the sample. Growth spells tend to be shorter in African and Latin American countries...