The future looked bright for Argentina in the early twentieth century. It had already achieved high levels of income per capita and was moving away from authoritarian government towards a more open democracy. Unfortunately, Argentina never finished the transition. The turning point occurred in...

This paper reviews the evolving literature that links financial development, financial crises, and economic growth in the past 20 years. The initial disconnect--with one literature focusing on the effect of financial deepening on long-run growth and another studying its impact on volatility and...

This paper surveys much of modern macroeconomics. The focus is on the core macroeconomic issue, of the reasons for macroeconomic fluctuations and sometimes persistent unemployment. To provide continuity and perspective on how promising research leads of the past turned out, the paper starts by...

In addition to some of the most acclaimed beaches in the world, the Indian ocean islands offer one of the planet's greatest concentrations of biodiversity and stunning landscapes that include active volcanoes, sculpted canyons, and verdant seaside cliffs. Yet, despite its many attributes and...

Brazil has had a long period of high inflation. It peaked around 100 percent per year in 1964, decreased until the first oil shock (1973), but accelerated again afterward, reaching levels above 100 percent on average between 1980 and 1994. This last period coincided with severe balance of...

After the economic reforms that followed the National Revolution of the 1950s, Bolivia seemed positioned for sustained growth. Indeed, it achieved unprecedented growth from 1960 to 1977. The rapid accumulation of debt due to persistent deficits and a fixed exchange rate policy during the 1970s...

This essay offers an economic-history perspective of the long struggle towards macroeconomic stability. The paper is a broad analytical overview of major exogenous shocks and shifts in macroeconomic policy and institutions in Israel since the 1977-1985 great inflation through the global...