In the literature on exports and investment, most productive firms are seen to invest abroad. In the Helpman et al. (2004) model, costs of transportation play a critical role in the decision about whether to serve foreign customers by exporting, or by producing abroad. We consider the case of...

Using domestic and export price data and a framework of markup over cost, pricing behavior of U.S. and Japanese manufacturers is compared. Major export industries in Japan have higher productivity growth and lower pass-through coefficients than American exporters, who tend to price to domestic...

"The author assesses empirically the relationship between natural disaster risk and investment in education. Although the results in the empirical literature tend to be inconclusive, using model averaging methods in the framework of cross-country and panel regressions, this paper finds an...

"The author presents evidence that balance sheet effects are critical determinants of both the likelihood of a crisis and of income losses following a crisis. She tests the validity of "insurance" and "liquidity" models of currency crisis. Both models predict that the occurrence of a balance of...

"Are natural resources a blessing or a curse? Bravo-Ortega and De Gregorio present a model in which natural resources have a positive effect on the level of income and a negative effect on its growth rate. The positive and permanent effect on income implies a welfare gain. There is a growth...

"Lopez-de-Silanes examines the theoretical and empirical literature pertaining to securities laws and their enforcement by regulators and courts to establish what is known and what is yet unclear. Recent empirical research in the field has established that law matters. Mandatory disclosure...

"Bourguignon, Goh, and Kim present an original method to study individual earning dynamics using repeated cross-sectional data. Because panel data of individuals are seldom available in developing countries, it is difficult to study individual earning dynamics and related issues such as the...

This notification summarizes the outcome of consultations with Washington-based representatives of participants in the General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB) on a possible renewal of the GAB decision. By way of background, the GAB was established in 1962 and is a standing agreement between the...

Fiscal rules are being increasingly used by both emerging and developed economies. This paper analyzes two alternative fiscal policy rules in terms of their impact on debt sustainability: a rule that fixes the ratio of primary surplus to GDP (""fixed surplus rule"") and one that sets the primary...

The incentives for domestic investment in debtor countries are influenced by the terms of their external obligations and by the system of taxation utilized to provide government revenue for debt payments. It is well known that existing debt contracts could be altered to improve the incentives...