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 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...

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...

This paper considers the sources of skill formation in a modern economy and emphasizes the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills in producing economic and social success and the importance of both formal academic institutions and families and firms as sources of learning. Skill...

With the major currencies continuously moving (if not floating freely) against each other, a country that does not choose to float must decide what to peg to. If it pegs to the SDR it floats against all currencies. Thus in the system begun in the early 1970s the very concept of a fixed exchange...

We examine the effects of both equity market liberalization and capital account openness on real consumption growth variability. We show that financial liberalization is mostly associated with lower consumption growth volatility. Our results are robust, surviving controls for business-cycle...

Many political economic theories use and emphasize the process of voting in their explanation of the growth of Social Security, government spending, and other public policies. But is there an empirical connection between democracy and Social Security program size or design? Using some new...