Contrary to the recent literature that concludes that the GATT/WTO has been completely ineffective in promoting world trade, this paper furnishes robust evidence that the institution has had a powerful and positive impact on trade. The impact has, however, been uneven. GATT/WTO membership for...

The real exchange rate (RER) has been called the single most important price, yet its behavior exhibits several puzzles. In this project, we use Big Mac prices as a unique prism to study the movement of real exchange rates. Part of our innovation is to match these prices to the prices of...

Crony capitalism and self-fulfilling expectations by international creditors are often suggested as two rival explanations for currency crisis. This paper examines a possible linkage between the two that has not been explored much in the literature: corruption may affect a country's composition...

The high and rising household savings rate in China is not easily reconciled with the traditional explanations that emphasize life cycle factors, the precautionary saving motive, financial development, or habit formation. This paper proposes a new competitive saving motive: As the sex ratio...

This paper studies the joint impact of corruption on the entry mode and volume of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) using a unique firm-level data set. We find that corruption not only reduces inward FDI, but also shifts the ownership structure towards joint ventures. The latter finding...

The author reviews the overwhelming statistical evidence that countries with high levels of corruption experience poor economic performance. Corruption hinders economic development by reducing domestic investment, discouraging foreign direct investment, encouraging overspending in government,...

This Paper empirically studies the effect of instrumental and institutional stabilization of the exchange rate on the integration of goods markets. An instrumental stabilization of the exchange rate is accomplished through intervention in the foreign exchange market, or by monetary policies. An...