This paper develops a political-economy model of the budget process focusing on the common pool problem of the public budget. We show that the externality arising from the fact that public spending tends to be targeted at individual groups in society while the tax burden is widely dispersed...

We examine the effects of oil rents on corruption and state stability exploiting the exogenous within-country variation of a new measure of oil rents for a panel of 31 oil-exporting countries during the period 1992 to 2005. We find that an increase in oil rents significantly increases...

Over the past decade, global output has grown by more than 3 percent a year and inflation has slowed in most regions. The fruits of this growthhave not been shared equally, however, and income disparities have grownin many countries, developed as well as developing. One of the mostpressing...

This paper analyzes the strategic role of investment from a debtor country’s perspective. The framework is one in which, if the debtor country is unable to meet debt obligations, a bargaining regime determines the amount of debt repayment. In the context of a two-country real trade model, debt...

This assessment reviews the regulatory framework in place for the oversight of the capital markets of the Russian Federation as of June 2011. The Russian securities markets, in particular, have been volatile, reflecting the inflow and outflow of money and the crisis. Foreign investment banks...