In the last few decades there has been little convergence of income levels in Latin America with those in the United States, in sharp contrast with both emerging Asia and emerging Europe. This paper argues that lack of convergence was not the result of low investment. Latin America is poorer...

We model an economy in which domestic banks and firms face incentive constraints, as in Holmstrom and Tirole (1997). Firms borrow from banks and uninformed investors, and can collude with banks to reduce the intensity of monitoring. We study the general equilibrium effects of capital flows...

The current destination of Central and Eastern European countries—explicitly for some, implicitly for all—is Brussels. The concept of the distance from Brussels is multi-dimensional. One simple measure, not without theoretical and empirical justification, is physical distance. This paper’s...

This paper examines the interest spending and taxation channels through which EMU could affect the public finances. It provides a framework for examining different views on a further narrowing of interest rate differentials. A model of Blanchard and Fischer is amended to analyze the two...

Recent studies conclude that the ongoing global financial integration may have had little or no value in advancing economic growth, especially in poor countries. Capital is often found to flow ""uphill"" from poor to rich countries. And, when it does flow into the less developed economies, it is...