The 2008 financial crisis is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1929. It has been characterised by a housing bubble in a context of rapid credit expansion, high risk-taking and exacerbated financial leverage, leading to deleveraging and credit crunch when the bubble burst....

In the coming decades, the share of people in working age will fall significantly in most developed countries. According to optimal taxation theory, public debts should be reduced before the baby-boom generation retires. I find that if debts are instead maintained at the current levels, welfare...

This paper considers the effects of fiscal and financial policy on economic growth in open and closed economies, when human capital formation by young households is constrained by the illiquidity of human wealth. Both endogenous and exogenous growth versions of the basic OLG model are analysed....

This Paper analyses the effects of dividend taxation on corporate behaviour using the large tax cut on individual dividend income enacted in 2003. Using data spanning 1980 to 2004-Q2, we document a sharp and widespread surge in dividend payments following the tax cut, along several dimensions....

This Paper examines the impact of a major change in dividend taxation introduced in the UK in July 1997. The reform was structured in such a way that the immediate impact fell almost entirely on the largest investor class in the UK, namely pension funds. We analyse the behaviour of share prices...

I survey the influence of Grossman and Hart's (1986) seminal paper in the field of International Trade. I discuss the implementation of the theory in open-economy environments and its implications for the international organization of production and the structure of international trade flows. I...

This paper analyzes the joint behavior of international capital flows by foreign and domestic agents--gross capital flows--over the business cycle and during financial crises. We show that gross capital flows are very large and volatile, especially relative to net capital flows. When foreigners...

The literature suggests that tax rates on mobile activities should fall to zero. Intellectual property is very mobile and has grown in importance. Firms can use intellectual property to shift income offshore and reduce their corporate income tax liability. Yet most intellectual property is held...

The paper presents new stylized facts on the direction of capital flows. We find (i) international capital flows net of government debt and/or official aid are positively correlated with growth; (ii) sovereign debt flows are negatively correlated with growth only if debt is financed by another...

We estimate channels of international risk sharing between European Monetary Union (EMU), European Union, and other OECD countries 1992-2007. We focus on risk sharing through savings, factor income flows, and capital gains. Risk sharing through factor income and capital gains was close to zero...