Using detailed information on lobbying and mortgage lending activities, we find that lenders lobbying more on issues related to mortgage lending (i) had higher loan-to-income ratios, (ii) securitized more intensively, and (iii) had faster growing portfolios. Ex-post, delinquency rates are higher...

High oil prices have once again led to large external surpluses of oil exporting countries, similar to the 1970s and 1980s. This paper analyzes the extent to which (i) oil exporters use bank deposits to invest these surpluses, and (ii) banks are lending on these funds to emerging market...

This paper develops a theory of international currency portfolios that holds in general equilibrium, and that is therefore not subject to the criticisms directed at the portfolio balance literature of the 1980s. It shows that, under plausible assumptions about fiscal policy, the relationship...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. SUPERVISORY PRACTICES -- III. TOWARDS GOOD PRACTICES -- COUNTRY PRACTICES: SURVEY RESULTS -- CURRENCY-INDUCED CREDIT RISK IN SELECTED BANKING SYSTEMS -- References.

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL MONEY? -- III. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK-FACTORS THAT FACILITATE INTERNATIONAL CURRENCY STATUS -- IV. REASONS FOR THE DIFFERENT VIEWS -- V. EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE TO DATE -- VI. MEDIUM-TERM PROSPECTS FOR THE EURO -- VII....

We investigate the relation between changes in tax composition and long-run economic growth using a new dataset covering a broad cross-section of countries with different income levels. We specifically consider 69 countries with at least 20 years of observations on total tax revenue during the...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between financial openness and total factor productivity (TFP) growth using an extensive dataset that includes various measures of productivity and financial openness for a large sample of countries. We find that de jure capital...

We identify structural breaks in economic growth in 140 countries and use these to define ""growth spells:"" periods of high growth preceded by an upbreak and ending either with a downbreak or with the end of the sample. Growth spells tend to be shorter in African and Latin American countries...

The paper provides an alternative explanation for the ""resource curse"" based on the income effect resulting from high government current spending in resource rich economies. Using a simple life cycle framework, we show that private investment in the non-resource sector is adversely affected if...

We analyze the growth impact of official development assistance to developing countries. Our approach is different from that of previous studies in two major ways. First, we disentangle the effects of two kinds of aid: developmental and non-developmental. Second, our specifications allow for the...