Analyses of the role of rational speculators in financial markets usually presume that such investors dampen price fluctuations by trading against liquidity or noise traders. This conclusion does not necessarily hold when noise traders follow positive-feedback investment strategies buy when...

Consensus forecasts for the global economy over the medium and long term predict the world's economic gravity will substantially shift towards Asia and especially towards the Asian Giants, China and India. While such forecasts may pan out, there are substantial reasons that China and India may...

Much of the new growth literature stresses country characteristics, such as education levels or political stability, as the dominant determinant of growth. However, growth rates are highly unstable over time, with a correlation across decades of .1 to .3, while country characteristics are...