Performance budgeting schemes in the public sector have to operate with imperfect performance measures. We argue that these imperfections lead to wasteful fund-seeking (window dressing and lobbying) by the administrative units that produce public services. We develop a game-theoretical model to...

This model shows that a microstate's decision to form, expand, or join a regional organization is based on reduced negotiating costs and increased bargaining power, rather than on the traditional costs and benefits of trade integration. Forming a regional grouping with neighboring nations may be...

Foreign aid donors and recipient governments often have conflicting objectives. Foreign donors may attempt to influence the policies of recipient governments by offering aid or threatening to suspend aid to sovereign states. This paper considers the credibility of such inducements and the...

During emerging market crises, domestic agents might have sufficient collateral to borrow from the other domestic agents, but they are unable to borrow from foreigners because the country, as a whole, lacks international collateral. In this setting, we show that an (ex-post) optimizing central...

The last few years have seen a significant re-evaluation of the models used to analyze crises in emerging markets. Recent models typically stress financial constraints or distorted financial incentives. While this certainly represents progress, these models share a weakness with the earlier...

The last few years have seen a significant re-evaluation of the models used to analyze crises in emerging markets. Recent models typically stress financial constraints or distorted financial incentives. While this certainly represents progress, these models share a weakness with the earlier...

This paper describes one proposition about dynamic Markowitz portfolio selection in an open economy. Here it is proved that, assuming that two countries in an open economy share the same risk absolute aversion coefficient and the same information set with some conditions, the portfolio each...

We survey the literature on global capital allocation. We begin by reviewing the rise of cross-border investment, the shift towards portfolio investment, and the literature focusing on aggregate patterns in multilateral and bilateral positions. We then turn to the recent literature that uses...

The Economist magazine has been publishing the Big Mac Index using it as a rule of thumb to determine the over- or under-valuation of international currencies based on the theory of Purchasing Power Parity since 1986. According to the theory, using the Big Mac as a tradable single-good basket,...