We exploit the recent declassification of CIA documents and examine whether there is evidence of US power being used to influence countries' decisions regarding international trade. We measure US influence using a newly constructed annual panel of CIA interventions aimed at installing and...

We document an empirical relationship between the cross-country adoption of technologies and the degree of long-term historical relatedness between human populations. Historical relatedness is measured using genetic distance, a measure of the time since two populations' last common ancestors. We...

We study the impact of nationalism and interstate frictions on international economic relations by analyzing market reaction to adverse shocks to Sino-Japanese relations in 2005 and 2010. Japanese companies with high China exposure suffer relative declines during each event window; a symmetric...

In International Relations the canonical model of inter-estate interactions is a one-shot security competition game. The model has the structure of a prisoners dilemma, which results in an equilibrium with two sources of inefficiency: excessive arming and possibly the destruction associated with...

We present an economic rationale for countries resorting to foreign influence to export their ideology to other nations. Our model incorporates two fundamental elements: redistribution of the tax burden between capital owners and workers, and international capital mobility. The model highlights...

Data on global trade as well as capital and labor flows indicate a slowdown, but not reversal, of globalization post the 2008-09 financial crisis. Yet profound changes in the policy environment and public sentiment in the largest economies over the past five years suggest the beginning of a new...

Analyzing the distributional impacts of economic crises is important and, unfortunately, an ever more pressing need. If policymakers are to intervene to help those most adversely impacted, then policymakers need to identify those who have been most harmed and the magnitude of that harm....

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic adjustment from the crisis in East Asia in a broad international prospective. The stylized pattern from the previous 160 currency crisis episodes over the period from 1970 to 1995 shows a V-type adjustment of real GDP growth in the years prior to and...