The theoretical literature gives conflicting predictions on how bank competition should affect financial stability, and dozens of researchers have attempted to evaluate the relationship empirically. We collect 598 estimates of the competitionstability nexus reported in 31 studies and analyze the...

A key parameter estimated by lab and field experiments in economics is the individual discount rate - and the results vary widely. We examine the extent to which this variance can be attributed to observable differences in methods, subject pools, and potential publication bias. To address the...

We provide a critical review of the literature on early warning indicators of economics crises and propose methods to overcome several pitfalls of the previous contributions. We use a quarterly panel of 40 EU and OECD countries for the period 1970-2010. As the response variable, we construct a...

The voluminous empirical research on horizontal productivity spillovers from foreign investors to domestic firms has yielded mixed results. In this paper, we collect 1,205 estimates of horizontal spillovers from the literature and examine which factors influence spillover magnitude. To identify...

We collect 2,735 estimates of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption from 169 published studies that cover 104 countries during different time periods. The estimates vary substantially from country to country, even after controlling for 30 aspects of study design. Our...

The present fiscal difficulties of many countries amplify the call for structural reforms. To provide stylized facts on how reforms worked in the past, we quantitatively review 60 studies estimating the relation between reforms and growth. These studies examine structural reforms carried out in...