Almost all countries announced fiscal support programs once COVID-19 hit. However, there was significant diversity in the magnitude and composition of these fiscal stimulus programs. These differences were determined by myriad political, financial, social, and economic factors - these factors...

Why do people save? A strand of the literature has emphasized the role of 'precautionary' motives; i.e., private agents save in order to mitigate unexpected future income shocks. An implication is that in countries faced with more macroeconomic volatility and risk, private saving should be...

This paper studies the endogenous determination of financial openness. We outline a framework where financial openness is endogenously determined by the authority's choice of financial repression as a taxation device, and where the private sector determines endogenously the magnitude of capital...

The global crisis of 2008 raises many questions regarding the long-term response to crises. We know that households that lost access to credit, for example, were forced to adjust and increase saving. But, will households keep on saving more than they would have done otherwise had the global...

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,...