We argue that membership in International Organizations (IOs) is an important determinant of FDI inflows. To the extent that membership restricts a country from pursuing policies that are harmful to investors, it can signal low political risk. Using data over the 1971-2005 period, we find that...

This paper studies the factors driving changes in judicial independence (JI) as incorporated in constitutions. Two indicators of constitutionally safeguarded JI are constructed. Variations in these indicators are identified based on changes in the constitutions of as many as 100 countries that...

This paper analyzes whether nation-state governments can increase their credibility by becoming members of international organizations. Credibility is an important asset because it determines the real interest rate and is expected to have an important impact on investment and growth. It is...

It is hypothesized that prosecution agencies that are dependent on the executive have less incentives to prosecute crimes committed by government members which, in turn, increases their incentives to commit such crimes. Here, this hypothesis is put to an empirical test focusing on a particular...

This paper studies the long-run impact of public debt expansion on economic growth and investigates whether the debt-growth relation varies with the level of indebtedness. Our contribution is both theoretical and empirical. On the theoretical side, we develop tests for threshold effects in the...

This paper does three things. First, based on a limited number of theoretically established dimensions, it proposes a new de facto indicator for the rule of law. It is the first such indicator to take the quality of legal norms explicitly into account. Second, using this indicator we shed new...

The recent plunge in oil prices has brought into question the generally accepted view that lower oil prices are good for the US and the global economy. In this paper, using a quarterly multi-country econometric model, we first show that a fall in oil prices tends relatively quickly to lower...

This paper presents a global model linking individual country vector error-correcting models in which the domestic variables are related to the country-specific variables as an approximate solution to a global common factor model. This global VAR is estimated for 26 countries, the euro area...

This paper estimates and solves a multi-country version of the standard DSGE New Keynesian (NK) model. The country-specific models include a Phillips curve determining inflation, an IS curve determining output, a Taylor Rule determining interest rates, and a real effective exchange rate...

Modelling of conditional volatilities and correlations across asset returns is an integral part of portfolio decision making and risk management. Over the past three decades there has been a trend towards increased asset return correlations across markets, a trend which has been accentuated...