This paper quantifies the relative contribution of domestic, regional and international factors to the fluctuation of domestic output in six key Latin American (LA) countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Using quarterly data over the period 1980:1-2003:4, a multi-variate,...

This paper develops an open economy model to assess the long-run effects of taxation where firms are finance constrained. Finance constraints arise because of imperfect information between borrowers and lenders. Only borowers (firms) can costlessly observe actual returns from production....

The prediction of future temperature increases depends critically on the projections of future greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there is a vigorous debate about how these projections should be undertaken and how reasonable is the approach of the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES)...

There is a large literature on the influence of commodity prices on the currencies of countries with a large commodity-based export sector such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada ("commodity currencies"). There is also the idea that because of pricing power, the value of currencies of certain...

This comment raises three main issues about He and Qin's (2004)attempt at modeling investment in the PRC. The first is this author's skepticism about the general applicability of the neoclassical model of investment to the PRC. Second, that their model for business investment, based on the...

We propose that the formation of beliefs be treated as statistical hypothesis tests, and we label such beliefs inferential expectations. If a belief is overturned through the build-up of evidence, agents are assumed to switch to the rational expectation. Rational expectations are shown to be a...

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model to assess the cost of financial intermediation in a small open economy with a floating exchange rate and sticky prices. Costly financial intermediation raises the cost of capital and lowers the long-run level of steady state output, capital...

Using nationwide U.S. bank-level data from 2003-2007, this paper explores multiple dimensions of the financial performance of small business loans by means of statistical decompositions. I find systematic contrasts across small commercial loans of different sizes, which suggest dynamic changes...

The world is in the midst of a significant demographic transition with important implications for the macroeconomic performance of the global economy. This paper summarizes the key features of the current and projected future demographic change that are likely to have macroeconomic effects. It...

We investigate the dynamic effects of five different fiscal shocks on the US economy using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model that uses Blanchard-Quah type restrictions. We find that an increase in indirect taxes or in corporate taxes has a contractionary effect on the economy,...