There are two main schools of thought which seek to explain currency crises; fundamentalist theories (Krugman, 1979) and speculative theories ( Obstfeld, 1986). However, neither of these approaches considers the timing of a speculative attack on the currency. I explain the timing of a crisis in...

We introduce 'formal methods' of mechanized reasoning from computer science to address two problems in auction design and practice: is a given auction design soundly specified, possessing its intended properties; and, is the design faithfully implemented when actually run? Failure on either...

NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) is the Indian government's flagship anti-poverty program and is one of the largest public works programmes in the world which aims to increase employment opportunities for the poor and in particular, improve women's access to the...

This paper uses the staggered implementation of a legal change in inheritance law in India to estimate the effect of women's improved access to inheritance on both police-reported and self-reported violence against women. I find a decrease in reported violence and female unnatural deaths...

The primary goal of this paper is to examine credit access of farmers in Nicaragua. We identify the primary factors determining their probability of securing a loan. We are also concerned with understanding the impact on agricultural sector of the large number of micro-finance institutions...

We take a computational approach to forecasting real and nominal house prices, comparing a large number of models varying by the choice of factors, 'observable endogenous variables' and the number of lags, in addition to classical and modern econometric models. We utilize various optimal model...

The paper studies learning with data (quasi-)differencing where agents need to (quasi-)difference data and then use an otherwise standard least squares learning procedure. It (1) establishes that the E-stability Principle is still valid for analyzing the convergence of the learning with (quasi-)...

A model of business cycles in which households do not have knowledge of the long-run growth of endogenous variables and continually learn about this growth is presented. The model features comovement and mutual reinforcement of households' growth expectations and market outcomes and suggests a...

This paper uses a market equilibrium model to calculate how the mix of generating capacity would change if large amounts of intermittent renewables are built in Great Britain, and what this means for operating patterns and the distribution of prices over time. If generators bid their marginal...

We show the effects of entry by a non-innovating firm on the innovating firms' incentive for undertaking cooperative R&D, highlighting the impliations of knowledge spillover. Entry by a non-innovating firm may either increase or decrease the incentive for cooperative R&D comparted to no entry,...