We study episodes where economic growth decelerates to negative rates. While the majority of these episodes are of short duration, a substantial fraction last for a longer period of time than can be explained as the result of business-cycle dynamics. The duration, depth and associated output...

There are two widely-held views on economic growth: 1) it is a natural outcome of getting 'the basics' right - international integration, macroeconomic stability, and contract enforcement; and 2) it is hard, requiring a complete set of first, second, and third generation reforms that have little...

Building on the large and growing empirical literature on the political behavior of individuals in low income countries this chapter seeks to understand corruption through the lens of political economy - particularly in terms of the political and economic differences between rich and poor...

To what extent is a country allowed to regulate immigration into its territory, and thus to determine who lives there? Acts of immigration amount to changes in two distinct relationships. They amount to a change in political relationships, since the immigrant alters her political standing within...

In February, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came into force, but without participation by the United States. Its impacts on emissions of greenhouse gases - including carbon dioxide (CO2) , the primary anthropogenic driver of climate change -...

This paper reviews five striking facts about inequality across countries. As Kuznets (1955) famously first documented, inequality first rises and then falls with income. More unequal societies are much less likely to have democracies or governments that respect property rights. Unequal societies...

Concerns about fairness leave champions of free trade puzzled. First, to some, talk about fairness in trade is conceptually muddled. Ideas of fairness seem tied to the image of leveling the playing field and thus concerned with equalizing background conditions, whereas trade thrives on...