Theory predicts that a fixed exchange rate regime will be abandoned after a sizable economic shock as currency devaluation could stimulate exports and output. However, devaluation is risky as the new level of the exchange rate and the rate of inflation cannot be predicted. We show that this...

This paper studies the effects of stock markets and banks on the sources of economic growth, productivity and capital accumulation, using a large cross country panel that includes high- and low-income countries. Results show that, in low-income countries, banks have a sizable positive effect on...

We study the effect of credit information sharing on the likelihood of banking crises using a comprehensive cross-country dataset for the period from 1975 to 2006. The empirical analysis shows that credit information sharing reduces the likelihood of banking crises and it does more so in low...

International capital markets are populated by heterogeneous investors. Some have better facilities to evaluate foreign borrowers and are more permanent players on the international scene. They are also more likely to invest longer-term. Others are more occasional, smaller-scale investors, and...

This paper uses unique survey data from Bulgaria, a transition economy with a currency board, to examine the following questions: 1) what is the level of confidence in the currency board over various time horizons, 2) how cognizant is the population of the restrictions a currency board imposes...

We expand the traditional tax incentive redundancy argument by investigating the implications of targeting incentives primarily to firms that would have invested anyway. Incorporating government revenue constraints, pliable tax officials, endogenous tax liabilities, and firms with heterogeneous...

This paper studies the effects of financial development on the sources of growth in different groups of countries. Recent theoretical work shows that financial development may affect productivity and capital accumulation in different ways in industrial versus developing countries. This...

The relationship between financial development and economic growth has received a lot of attention in the economic literature in recent years. The consensus finding, which has also become widely accepted by policymakers, is that financial development has a positive, monotonic effect on growth....