This paper studies the volatility of commodity prices on the basis of a large dataset of monthly prices observed in international trade data from the United States over the period 2002 to 2011. The conventional wisdom in academia and policy circles is that primary commodity prices are more...

The 2007-2008 upsurge in agricultural commodity prices gave rise to widespread concern about investors causing a"global land rush". Large land deals can provide opportunities for better access to capital, transfer of technology, and advances in productivity and employment generation. But they...

This paper explores the effect of news shocks on the current account and other macroeconomic variables using worldwide giant oil discoveries as a directly observable measure of news shocks about future output–the delay between a discovery and production is on average 4 to 6 years. We first...

focuses on two objectives in his study: (1) to establish a baseline measurement of the level and geographic distribution of social capital in Argentina, and (2) to identify its empirical determinants. The study's survey questionnaire provides individual-level data on the population's...

The authors rely on a series of growth accounting exercises to determine whether the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP) or the unexplained portion of GDP growth (after controlling for the accumulation of capital per worker) in 18 Latin American and Caribbean economies has benefited...

The authors use disaggregated export data to explore the relationship between economic discovery and economic development. They find that discoveries, or episodes, when countries begin exporting a new product are not limited to so-called"dynamic"industries. Rather, they also occur in traditional...

In spite of the growing concerns about foreign direct investment being diverted from Latin America to China and India, the best available data show that Latin America has performed relatively well since 1997. Foreign capital stocks from OECD countries and the United States in particular in China...

It is so widely recognized that innovation is a key driver of economic growth that it is cliché to say so. This article studies product innovation by firms with data from 68 countries, covering more than 25,000 firms in eight manufacturing sectors. The author assesses the predictions of...

Chile has become a model for reforming economies throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political and economic circumstances surrounding Chile's unilateral trade liberalization during five stages (covering the period 1974-1990s),each being characterized by different...

The causes and consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries remains a subject of debate among researchers and policymakers alike. The authors use international data and a new micro-data set of firms in thirteen Southern African Developing Countries (SADCs) to...