This paper studies the impact of global factors on patterns of basic research across countries and time. We rely on the records of major scientific awards, and on data dealing with global economic and historical trends. Specifically, we investigate the degree to which scale or threshold effects...

This paper uses a difference-in-difference methodology similar to the one originally proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998) to test whether defaulting hurts the more export-oriented industries. Strong support for this hypothesis was found, but contrary to the findings of previous studies, our...

Commonly used datasets on the level of public debt provide incomplete country and period coverage. This paper presents a new dataset that includes complete series of central government debt for 89 countries over the 1991-2005 period and for seven other countries for the 1993-2005 period. The...