Using the international investment regime as its point of departure, the paper applies notions of bounded rationality to the study of economic diplomacy. Through a multi-method approach, it shows that developing countries often ignored the risks of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) until they...

This paper uses a new data-set to examine how internal capital markets and foreign ownership affect investment. Our data allow us to compare investment behaviour of listed subsidiaries with stand-alone firms while controlling for investment opportunities of parent and subsidiary firms. We...

In this paper we explain the apparent diversification discount of conglomerates without assuming inefficent-cross subsidisation through internal capital markets. Instead we assume that an internal capital market efficiently redistributes scare resources across a conglomerates divisions between...

The net entry contribution to aggregate productivity growth has increased dramatically in the UK over 1990s according to calculations based on data from the Annual Respondents Database (ARD). Some recent studies have tried to link this to other structural changes over the same period such as...

This paper studies the impact of NAFTA on informality and real wages in Mexico. Using a dynamic industry model with firm heterogeneity, it is predicted that import tariff elimination could reduce the incidence of informality by making more profitable to some firms to enter the formal sector,...

We critically review the recent literature on currency unions, and discuss the methodological challenges posed by the empirical assessment of their costs and benefits. In the process, we provide evidence on the economic effects of the euro. In particular, and in contrast with estimates of the...

This paper shows that in a non-representative agent model in which households face short selling constraints and labor income risk, in the form of both uninsurable shocks and a common aggregate component, small differences in the correlation between aggregate labor income shocks and domestic and...

We analyze a dual currency search model in which agents are allowed to hold multiple units of both currencies. Hence, agents hold portfolios of currency. We study equilibria in which the two currencies are identical and equilibria in which the two currencies differ according to the magnitude of...

This paper offers two main contributions. First, it shows how the Baxter and Jermann (1997) claim that, once we consider human capital risk, the international diversification puzzle is worse than we think, is based on an econometric misspecification rejected by the data. Second, it outlines how,...

With the Euro now a physical reality, Richard Layard argues that the economic case for Britain joining Euro-land is overwhelming.