Although the Scottish electorate voted down independence in 2014, Brexit has led to renewed calls from Scottish political leaders for a second referendum. Scottish independence would likely lead to joining the European Union, and this would obligate Scotland to eventually join the euro common...

A number of previous studies (Barro and Sala-i-Martin, Grier) have attempted to gauge the differential impact of regressors such as human capital and investment on the performance of fast and slow growing economies. To date, most such studies impose a single marginal impact on all countries for...

A number of papers have investigated the increasing macroeconomic ties between Mexico and the USA. These studies have relied on linear models, however, making their results suspect. Other papers have investigated nonlinearity over the Mexican business cycle, but have not studied the links...

Current estimates of housing wealth effects vary widely. While some of this variation reflects data limitations and inappropriate estimators, we also consider the role of omitted variables suggested by economic theory that have been absent in a number of prior studies. In particular, our...

A number of papers over the last decade have posited that Optimal Currency Areas are endogenous with respect to business cycle synchronization. The claim is that a common currency will greatly increase trade, and then trade will increase output synchronization. Countries that thus seem...

Alexander Hamilton proposed a debt conversion plan for the United States in 1790 that allowed different creditors to choose from a list of different (reduced) repayment options. This plan was not, however, adopted by Congress, which instead opted for a one-size fits all scheme. Modern economic...

Models used to guide policy, as well as some empirical studies, suggest that the effect of housing wealth on consumption is large and greater than the wealth effect on consumption from stock holdings. Recent theoretical work, in contrast, argues that changes in housing wealth are offset by...