This paper clarifies one of the puzzling results of the economic growth literature: the impact of military expenditure is frequently found to be non-significant or negative, yet most countries spend a large fraction of their GDP on defense and the military. We start by empirical evaluation of...

Are countries with unregulated capital flows more vulnerable to currency crises? Efforts to answer this question properly must control for “self selection†bias since countries with liberalized capital accounts may also have more sound economic policies and institutions that make them...