We show that preferences, estimated with subjective measures of individual well-being, help to explain the adoption of certain types of institutions. In particular, we show that countries exhibiting greater inflation aversion are more likely to adopt the inflation targeting monetary regime.

type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>Proponents of inflation targeting (IT) claim that it increases the credibility of central banks, which in turn should result in smaller sacrifice ratios (SRs) – that is, the ratio of output losses to the change in trend inflation during disinflations. We show...</p>

This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government...

This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government...