Presented at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research’s (SIEPR) Associates Meeting, Stanford, CA, February 12, 2013

A large body of literature documents that returns from currency speculation are highly volatile and possess a predictable component, which is itself highly volatile and serially correlated. Explaining the returns from currency speculation through the presence of a risk premium has proven...

American politics have become increasingly polarized in recent decades. To the extent that political polarization introduces uncertainty about economic policy, this pattern may have adversely affected the economy. According to existing theories, a rise in the volatility of fiscal shocks faced by...

We are motivated by four stylized facts computed for emerging and developed economies: (i) business cycle movements are wider in emerging countries; (ii) economies in emerging countries experience greater economic policy uncertainty; (iii) emerging economies are more polarized and less...