In this paper, we argue that the effect of governance on the emergence of crimes of different levels of sophistication is highly non-linear. State failure, anarchy and a lack of infrastructure are not conducive to establishing any business, including illicit enterprises. At the bottom of the...

What determines the direction of spread of currency crises? We examine data on waves of currency crises in 1992, 1994, 1997, and 1998 to evaluate several hypotheses on the determinants of contagion. We simultaneously consider trade competition, financial links, and institutional similarity to...

We assess the contribution of macroeconomic uncertainty -- approximated by the dispersion of the real GDP survey forecasts -- to the ex post and ex ante prediction of stock price bubbles. For a panel of six OECD economies covering 24 years, two alternative binary chronologies of bubble periods...