This paper examines the robustness of explanatory variables in cross-country economic growth regressions. It employs a novel approach, Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE), which constructs estimates as a weighted average of OLS estimates for every possible combination of included...

The purpose of this paper is to explain the reluctance of developing countries to open up their capital market to foreigners, and the conditions inducing an emerging market economy to switch its policies. We consider an economy characterized initially by a one-sided openness to the capital...

166 countries have some kind of public old age pension. What economic forces create and sustain old age Social Security as a public program? We document some of the internationally and historically common features of Social Security programs including explicit and implicit taxes on labor supply,...

Data for around 100 countries from 1960 to 1990 are used to assess the effects of inflation on economic performance. If a number of country characteristics are held constant, then regression results indicate that the impact effects from an increase in average inflation by 10 percentage points...

The paper examines if real stock returns in four countries are consistent with consumption-based models of international asset pricing. The paper finds that ex-ante real stock returns exhibit statistically significant fluctuations over time and that these fluctuations cannot be explained by...

The purpose of this paper is to assess how restrictions on capital mobility affect adjustment to a tariff liberalization policy. This is done by comparing the adlustment process under free and restricted convertibility of foreign assets in a regime where the commercial exchange rate is pegged....

This paper examines the degree to which the learning by doing externality [LBD] calls for an undervalued exchange rate, a policy suggested by recent empirical studies which concluded that mildly undervalued real exchange rate may enhance growth. We obtain mixed results. For an economy where LBD...

A representative-consumer model with Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences and i.i.d. shocks, including rare disasters, accords with key asset-pricing observations. If the coefficient of relative risk aversion equals 3-4, the model accords with observed equity premia and risk-free real interest rates. If...

This paper distills and extends recent research on the economics of human development and social mobility. It summarizes the evidence from diverse literatures on the importance of early life conditions in shaping multiple life skills and the evidence on critical and sensitive investment periods...