Many asset prices, including exchange rates, exhibit periods of stability punctuated by infrequent, substantial, often one-sided adjustments. Statistically, this generates empirical distributions of exchange rate changes that exhibit high peaks, long tails, and skewness. This paper introduces a...

This paper takes a new empirical look at the long-standing question of the effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade flows by studying the case of Taiwan's exports to the United States from 1989-1998. In particular, we employ sectoral-level, monthly data and an innovative...

This paper introduces a simple method of price risk decomposition that determines the extent to which producer price risk is attributable to volatile inter-market margins, intra-day variation, intra-week (day of week) variation, or terminal market price variability. We apply the method to...

Pastoralists in East Africa's arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) regularly confront climatic shocks triggering massive herd die-offs and loss of scarce wealth. On the surface, it appears puzzling that pastoralists do not make extensive use of livestock markets to offload animals when climatic...

In the 1992 United States presidential campaign, Bill Clinton and his staff regularly invoked the forceful reminder "It's the economy, stupid!" in order to maintain a tight focus on the core issue that would ultimately decide their electoral success or failure. This initially seemed reductionist...

1. This paper was commissioned by the Trade and Markets Division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to address the relationship between food aid and commercial international food trade as background to an anticipated OECD study on the export competition aspects...

This paper presents a simple two-period, dual economy model in which migration options may affect the informal financing of educational investments. When credit contracts are universally available and perfectly enforceable, spatially varied returns to human capital have no effect on educational...

Do rural households in developing countries make market participation and volume decisions simultaneously or sequentially? This article develops a two-stage econometric model that allows testing between these two competing hypotheses regarding household-level market behavior. The first stage...

Persistent poverty is one of the core challenges faced by Christians and by development scholars and practitioners alike. There is no question that Jesus was concerned about the poor - both materially and spiritually. From his first public address in the Synagogue in Nazareth, His home town,...