Latin America is volatile--about two to three times as volatile as the industrial economies. It is more volatile than any region other than Africa and the Middle East. Latin America's access to international financial markets is sporadic, and often disappears just when it would be most valuable.

We study the effects of electoral institutions on the size and composition of public expenditure in OECD and Latin American countries. We present a model emphasizing the distinction between purchases of goods and services, which are easier to target geographically, and transfers, which are...

It is frequently alleged that the persistent, high rates of unemployment in many European countries are due, at least in part, to various labor market rigidities. One of these rigidities is the high cost of firing workers, compared with the cost in the United States, or in Europe in the early...

This paper articulates a model of the small, open economy in which the stock market, rather than the bond market, determines domestic aggregate demand. It resembles in many respects the widely adopted dynamic Mundell-Fleming approach, but can, in some circumstances, exhibit output and asset...

We consider an empirical estimation of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for carbon dioxide and sulphur, with a focus on confidence set estimation of the tipping point. Various econometric—parametric and nonparametric—methods are considered, reflecting the implications of persistence,...

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) is an expanding global initiative oriented at slowing or reversing carbon emissions from forests in the Global South. The programme is based on the principle of payment for environmental services, where the carbon sequestration...