The effects of supply-side policies in depressed economies are controversial. We shed light on this debate using evidence from France in the 1930s. In 1936, France departed from the gold standard and implemented mandatory wage increases and hours restrictions. Deflation ended but output...

This paper examines how supply-side policies may play a role in fighting a low aggregate demand that traps an economy at the zero lower bound (ZLB) of nominal interest rates. Future increases in productivity or reductions in mark-ups triggered by supply-side policies generate a wealth effect...

The paper combines insights from the recent research programs on constitutions and economic policy, and on history, institutions and growth. Drawing on cross-sectional as well as panel data, it presents new empirical results showing that the form of democracy (rather than democracy vs....

The paper presents empirical findings regarding the economic policy consequences of constitutional arrangements, in three different dimensions. First, the data are consistent with several theoretical predictions about the consequences of electoral rules and forms of government for fiscal policy...

This paper develops a decision-theoretic approach to policy analysis. We argue that policy evaluation should be conducted on the basis of two factors: the policymaker's preferences, and the conditional distribution of the outcomes of interest given a policy and available information. From this...

We consider a tractable model of heterogeneous production units that features endogenous entry and productivity investment to assess the quantitative impact of policy distortions on aggregate output and establishment size. Relative to the standard factor misallocation framework, policy...

Economic policy uncertainty affects decisions of households, businesses, policy makers and Financial intermediaries. We first examine the impact of economic policy uncertainty on aggregate bank credit growth. Then we analyze commercial bank entity level data to gauge the effects of policy...

Developing countries have typically pursued procyclical macroeconomic policies, which tend to amplify the underlying business cycle (the "when-it-rains-it-pours" phenomenon). There is, however, evidence to suggest that about a third of developing countries have shifted from procyclical to...

We estimate a New-Keynesian macro model accommodating regime-switching behavior in monetary policy and in macro shocks. Key to our estimation strategy is the use of survey-based expectations for inflation and output. We identify accommodating monetary policy before 1980, with activist monetary...