We investigate the degree of financial integration within and between European countries. We construct two measures of de-facto integration across European regions to capture "diversification" and "development" finance in the language of Obstfeld and Taylor (2004). We find evidence that capital...

The magnitude and the direction of net international capital flows does not fit neo-classical models. The 50 U.S. states comprise an integrated capital market with very low barriers to capital flows, which makes them an ideal testing ground for neoclassical models. We develop a simple...

Firm-level data on productivity, financial activity and firms' international linkages have become essential for research in the fields of macro, international finance and growth. This paper describes the development of a firm-level global panel dataset for public and private companies based on...

Using a variance decomposition of shocks to GDP, we quantify the role of international factor income, international transfers, and saving in achieving risk sharing during the recent European crisis. We focus on the sub-periods 1990-2007, 2008-2009, and 2010 and consider separately the European...

We estimate channels of international risk sharing between European Monetary Union (EMU), European Union, and other OECD countries 1992-2007. We focus on risk sharing through savings, factor income flows, and capital gains. Risk sharing through factor income and capital gains was close to zero...

We present new stylized facts on bank and firm leverage for 2000-2009 using extensive internationally comparable micro level data from several countries. The main result is that there was very little buildup in leverage for the average non-financial firm and commercial bank before the crisis,...

Using country- and region-level data, I investigate the effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility in Africa during 1985-2000. Results differ depending on the variation used and the estimation method. Between estimates that exploit cross-sectional variation suggest a positive significant effect of HIV/AIDS...

Using confidential regulatory firm-bank-loan level data from the U.S., we document four new facts about the credit market. First, private SMEs typically utilize all available bank credit which comprises their entire balance sheet debt, compared to large listed firms who can switch between...

We document five novel facts about Uncovered Interest Parity (UIP) deviations vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar for 34 currencies of advanced economies and emerging markets, using survey data on expected exchange rate. First, the UIP premium co-moves with global risk perception (VIX) for all...

We study the effects of fiscal policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the firm, sector, country and global level. First, we estimate the impact of COVID-19 and policy responses on small and medium sized enterprise (SME) business failures. We combine firm-level financial data from 50...