We calculate indexes of central bank autonomy (CBA) for 163 central banks as of end-2003, and comparable indexes for a subgroup of 68 central banks as of the end of the 1980s. The results confirm strong improvements in both economic and political CBA over the past couple of decades, although...

Over the past decade, productivity-adjusted wages have grown at a slower pace in Japan than in other rich countries. This paper suggests that Japan's dualities between regular and "nonregular" labor market contracts and the relatively inefficient services sector have exacerbated the negative...

Over the past decade, rising oil prices have translated into high levels of public investment in most MENA and CCA oil exporters. This has prompted questions about the efficiency of public investment in generating growth and closing infrastructure gaps, as well as concerns about fiscal...

We argue that the U.S. personal saving rate’s long stability (from the 1960s through the early 1980s), subsequent steady decline (1980s - 2007), and recent substantial increase (2008 - 2011) can all be interpreted using a parsimonious ‘buffer stock’ model of optimal...