Empirical evidence on the relationship between democracy and economic reforms is limited to few reforms, countries, and years. This paper studies the impact of democracy on the adoption of economic reforms using a new dataset on reforms in the financial, capital and banking sectors, product...

This paper examines the mechanisms through which output volatility is related to trade openness using an industry-level panel dataset of manufacturing production and trade. The main results are threefold. First, sectors more open to international trade are more volatile. Second, trade is...

We show that fiscal policies reflecting a primary balance response to higher debt in line with historic experience would significantly increase the likelihood of reaching the debt targets of the U.S. administration in the medium term. Deficits and debt are higher under current budgetary...

The paper investigates how changes in industries' funding costs affect total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Based on panel regressions using 31 U.S. and Canadian industries between 1991 and 2007, and using industries' dependence on external funding as an identification mechanism, we show that...

Klyuev (2008) concluded that the Canadian market for housing finance is highly advanced and sophisticated, but financing options were somewhat limited, particularly at terms longer than five years. This paper argues that the paucity of longer-term loans is caused by a five-year maturity cap on...

This paper explores factors behind Canadian banks' relative resilience in the ongoing credit turmoil. We identify two main causes: a higher share of depository funding (vs. wholesale funding) in liabilities, and a number of regulatory and structural factors in the Canadian market that reduced...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. OUTLOOK FOR ENERGY PRODUCTION -- III. EXPORT PROSPECTS AND DUTCH DISEASE -- IV. EXCHANGE RATE EQUATION -- V. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER -- VI. CONCLUSION -- APPENDIX I. Data -- References.