In this paper, we analyze which currencies can be regarded as safe haven currencies. Our empirical approach allows us to distinguish between a low- and high stress regime, and to control for the impact of carry trade reversals and other fundamental determinants. We therefore address the question...

Major DAC donors are widely criticized for weak targeting of aid, selfish aid motives and insufficient coordination. The emergence of an increasing number of new donors may further complicate the coordination of international aid efforts. On the other hand, new donors (many of which were aid...

Using panel data for 143 countries over the period 1973 - 2002, this paper empirically analyzes the influence of US aid on voting patterns in the UN General Assembly. We use disaggregated aid data to account for the fact that various forms of aid may differ in their ability to induce political...

This paper empirically analyzes the impact of aid on education for about 100 countries over the period 1970 - 2005. We estimate a system of equations to test whether and to what extent the impact of sector-specific aid on educational attainment depends on (i) the extent to which aid adds to...

Recent empirical work has established that 'democracy causes growth'. In this paper, we determine the underlying institutions which drive this relationship using data from the Varieties of Democracy project. We sketch how incentives and opportunities as well as the distribution of political...

The COVID-19 pandemic increased pressure on the relationship between governments and the public, making cooperation between both actors more critical than ever. Surprisingly, there is significant variation in public compliance with health policies, especially regarding vaccine uptake across...

At the zero lower bound (ZLB), expectations about the future path of monetary or fiscal policy are crucial. We model expectations formation under level-k thinking, a form of bounded rationality introduced by García-Schmidt and Woodford (2019) and Farhi and Werning (2017), consistent with...

According to the two-country full information New Keynesian model with flexible exchange rates, the real exchange rate appreciates in response to an asymmetric negative demand shock at the zero lower bound (ZLB) and exacerbates the adverse macroeconomic effects. This finding requires inflation...