This paper discusses the possible causes and consequences of corruption. It provides a synthetic review of recent studies that analyze this phenomenon empirically. In addition, it presents further results on the effects of corruption on growth and investment, and new cross-country evidence on...

Many studies have attempted to uncover empirical regularities in how countries choose their exchange rate regimes. We survey previous studies showing that, taken as a whole, the literature is inconclusive. Drawing on a large dataset with many potential explanatory variables and a variety of...

There is increasing recognition that corruption has substantial, adverse effects on economic growth. But if the costs of corruption are so high, why don’t countries strive to improve their institutions and root out corruption? Why do many countries appear to be stuck in a vicious circle of...

Which structural reforms affect the speed the regional convergence within a country? We found that domestic financial development, trade/current account openness, better institutional infrastructure, and selected labor market reforms facilitate regional convergence. However, these reforms have...

We analyze how the pass-through from exchange rate to domestic wages depends on the degree of integration between domestic and foreign labor markets. Using data from 66 countries over the period 1981–2005, we find that the elasticity of domestic wages to real exchange rate is 0.1 after a year...