The financial crisis has re-ignited the fierce debate about the merits of financial globalization and its implications for growth, especially for developing countries. The empirical literature has not been able to conclusively establish the presumed growth benefits of financial integration....

The purpose of this paper is to assess how restrictions on capital mobility affect adjustment to a tariff liberalization policy. This is done by comparing the adlustment process under free and restricted convertibility of foreign assets in a regime where the commercial exchange rate is pegged....

We develop a methodology that intuitively characterizes the choices countries have made with respect to the trilemma during the post Bretton-Woods period. The paper first outlines the new metrics for measuring the degree of exchange rate flexibility, monetary independence, and capital account...

This paper evaluates the degree to which current account patterns are explained by the variables suggested by the literature, and reflects on possible future patterns. We start with panel regressions explaining the current account of 69 countries during 1981-2006. We identify an asymmetric...

This paper investigates the association between commercial and financial openness of developing countries. The data suggest that, controlling for GDP/Capita changes and allowing for country specific effects, increase in a developing country's (exports + imports)/GDP is associated with a highly...

This paper clarifies one of the puzzling results of the economic growth literature: the impact of military expenditure is frequently found to be non-significant or negative, yet most countries spend a large fraction of their GDP on defense and the military. We start by empirical evaluation of...

Using an uneven panel of 135 countries from 1995 to 2014, we investigate the link between interest rates and private saving, and focus on whether the interest rate effect is dominated by the income (i.e., negative) or the substitution (i.e., positive) effect. With the baseline estimation, we...

This paper evaluates the relation between house prices and economic growth. Using a dataset that covers house prices for 19 countries from the first quarter of 1975 to the third quarter of 2013. We find that house price appreciations are positively associated with economic growth, while the...

In contrast, we find that past crisis experience has a significant impact on savings. When facing considerable political risk, the past does seem to matter - countries with more people who were exposed, over their lifetime, to larger disasters will tend to save more. This association, however,...