We present a menu-cost pricing model with a large but finite number n of firms. A firm’s nominal price increase lowers other firms’ relative prices, thereby inducing further nominal price increases. The distribution of these repricing avalanches converges as n→∞ to a mixture of...

We examine how financial expansion and contraction cycles affect the broader economy through their impact on real economic sectors in a panel of countries over 1960-2005. Periods of accelerated growth of the financial sector are more likely to be followed by abrupt financial contractions than...

This paper applies a probit estimation to assess the relationship between economic takeoffs during 1950-2000 and inflows of portfolio debt, portfolio equity, and FDI, controlling for country's stock of short-term external debt and commodity terms of trade. Average level of FDI inflows is...

We examine the differential impact of portfolio debt, portfolio equity, and FDI inflows on 37 manufacturing industries, 99 countries, 1991-2007, extending Rajan-Zingales (1998). We utilize external finance dependence measures in a series of cross-sectional regressions of manufacturing...

This paper revisits the association between investment and growth. The empirical findings highlight substantial heterogeneity for the effect of investment on growth and suggest a possible negative association. Results based on a battery of cross-sectional and time-series regressions show that...

This paper investigates the factors explaining exchange market pressures (EMP) and the hoarding and use of international reserves (IR) by emerging markets during the 2000s, as the Great Moderation turned to the 2008-9 global crisis and great recession. According to our results, both financial...