The paper discusses and revisits some of the most popular stories behind the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina, i.e. the prolonged overvaluation of the peso owing to the Currency Board arrangement, the lack of fiscal adjustment, and the negative external environment which triggered a “sudden...

This paper examines the growth pattern followed by the Chilean economy with reference to the macroeconomic reforms undertaken during the Pinochet regime, which were largely maintained by successive democratic administrations and partially reproduced by neighbouring countries. The focus is on the...

We postulate a new method of identifying debt which we call Debt Burden (DB). We claim that DB reveals the true debt obligations of the fiscal authority. It is more accurate and transparent. Hence, DB would serve fiscal authority much better in policy making. It is powerful in a sense that it is...

From 1995 to 2001 Russia witnessed an asset market boom, a deep financial crisis, and a surprisingly forceful recovery. This paper analyzes economic policy and data of the time to explain why fluctuations were so violent and to draw lessons for Emerging Markets investors as well as for...

In earlier papers on “Socialist privatization” Feige proposed a sequential set of stabilization, privatization and liberalization policies designed to provide the necessary, albeit not sufficient conditions, for a transition from a planned to a market economy. An important component of the...

Election finances are usually lightly regulated in emerging democracies. As these democracies mature they seek to impose campaign spending limits, limits on contributions, and disclosure laws. The present paper reviews the experience with such laws in the United States and Canada and contrasts...

This paper investigates the effects of the sources of candidates' campaign funding on their electoral outcomes, with particular emphasis on whether candidates who rely on a narrow base of funding suffer adverse electoral consequences. An extensive dataset consisting of over 650,000 contributions...

Spending limits are an important rule in the electoral game. Critics of limits claim that incumbents write these rules to keep down promising challengers. Their arguments are seductive but do not stand on a firm empirical base. The data seem quite eager to support or reject the critics' view,...

The economics of information goods suggest the need for institutional intervention to address the problem of revenue extraction from investments in resources characterized by high fixed costs of production and low marginal costs of reproduction and distribution. Solutions to the appropriation...

This paper investigates some economic effects of recent amendments to the German Copyright Law on the German film industry. The changes assume the existence of a prevailing “structural superiority” of media companies over their contractual partners in labor markets which supposedly results...