Conventional wisdom claims that fixed exchange rates provide more fiscal discipline than do flexible rates, but the recent experiences in Europe, the record of Sub-Saharan countries in the 1980s, and the history of stabilization attempts in Latin America cast empirical doubts on this wisdom. To...

During the 1970s and 1980s the steel industry in the United States enjoyed trade protection. However, higher prices were reflected in a higher wage premium relative to the rest of the manufacturing sector, and in a greater share of profits divested by integrated steel producers. Furthermore,...

We analyze an economy that lacks a strong legal-political institutional infrastructure and is propulated by multiple powerful groups. Powerful groups dynamically interact via a fiscal process that effectively allows open access to the aggregate capital stock. In equilibrium, this leads to slow...

In this paper, we document the fact that countries that have experienced occasional financial crises have, on average, grown faster than countries with stable financial conditions. We measure the incidence of crisis with the skewness of credit growth, and find that it has a robust negative...

In this paper we document three credit market imperfections prevalent in middle income countries that can help to explain boom-bust cycles, as well as other macroeconomic patterns observed at higher frequencies across these countries. These imperfections are: the existence of financing...