The United States currently incarcerates a higher share of its population than any other country in the world. We calculate that a reduction in incarceration rates just to the level we had in 1993 (which was already high by historical standards) would lower correctional expenditures by $16.9...

Exploiting spatial and temporal variations in the number of seizures from criminal organizations, I estimate regional fixed effects models of the increase in the number of properties confiscated on the main crime rates. From 2002 security strategies changed, and as a result, the effects on crime...

As state governments face budget gaps of tens of billions of dollars in FY2009 and FY2010, this issue brief calculates the potential detrimental effects of state budget cuts on unemployment. While Congress considers a national economic recovery package, this issue brief highlights the fact that...

Este artículo analiza la evolución entre 2007 y 2011, de las cifras fiscales de las seis ciudades con mayores ingresos en 2011 en Colombia: Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena y Bucaramanga. La ciudad que registró mayores progresos en términos de esfuerzo fiscal en el período...

This document analyzes the macroeconomic effects of a boom in a small-open economy’s natural-resource sector. We study the effects of this shock on the most important macroeconomic variables, the resource reallocation across sectors and on welfare under alternative fiscal rules. We employ a...

Durante las últimas décadas el incremento en la desigualdad experimentado por algunas economías desarrolladas ha estado relacionado con la adopción de tecnologías que utilizan intensivamente la mano de obra calificada. En este documento se plantea un modelo teórico en el que se recoge...

With Spain’s official unemployment rate at 26 percent, and the economy projected to contract by 1.3 percent this year, it is difficult to make the case for continued austerity that could push a barely growing economy back into recession. Yet the government is committed to further fiscal...

This paper looks at Venezuela’s export revenue, imports, and trade and current account balances under a range of oil price outcomes for the next two years. It finds that Venezuela would run large current account surpluses for prices between $60-90 per barrel, and would even run a small surplus...

This paper shows that, in spite of a reasonably sized fiscal stimulus package, Costa Rica’s economy continues on a downward path, partly because fiscal policy is being offset by a tightening of monetary policy. The paper notes that the International Monetary Fund has insisted that Costa...

En este documento se caracteriza la política fiscal en Colombia a partir de la valoración de los tres aspectos más relevantes desde la perspectiva macroeconómica: su posición frente al ciclo, su volatilidad y la sostenibilidad de la deuda. Los resultados encontrados se comparan a nivel...