This note lays out the basic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) epidemiological model of contagion, with a target audience of economists who want a framework for understanding the effects of social distancing and containment policies on the evolution of contagion and interactions with the...

Estimating the effect of trade on capital flows is difficult given the inherent identification problem. We use fluctuations in rainfall to capture the exogenous variation in trade between Germany, France, the U.K., and the Ottoman Empire during 1859-1913. The provisionistic policy of the Ottoman...

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world's population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of-or in spite of-globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on...