We examine the effects of Ukraine's economic blockade of the anthracite-rich Donbas region, to demonstrate how trade sanctions' efficacy can be undermined by trade through non-participatory nations. We document that after the blockade was imposed in March 2017, Russia reported a sharp increase...

This paper studies the role of exit from a monetary union during a debt crisis. A monetary union, such as the European Monetary Union, needs to establish a procedure for exit as a tool to cope with debt default. The paper studies various forms of exit and argues that "Euroization" is both a...

In early 2003, France actively tried to thwart the plans of the Bush administration to build international support for a war to depose Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. In response, calls in the United States for a boycott of French products, wine in particular, rebounded through all forms of media....

During World War II the Allies controlled Spain's oil supply in order to limit Spain's support for the Axis. This experiment with sanctions is unusually informative because a wide range of policies was tried over a long period. Three episodes are of special interest: (1) a total embargo on oil...

American firms are subject to tax and civil penalties for participating in international boycotts (other than those sanctioned by the U.S. government). These penalties apply primarily to American companies that cooperate with the Arab League's boycott of Israel. The effectiveness of U.S....

Global environmental concerns have increased the sensitivity of governments and other parties to the actions of those outside their national jurisdiction. Parties have tried to extend influence extraterritorially both by promising to reward desired behavior and by threatening to punish undesired...

Sanctions are measures that one party (the sender) takes to influence the actions of another (the target). Sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, have been used, for example, by creditors to get a foreign sovereign to repay debt or by one government to influence the human rights, trade, or...

Penalties for tax evasion are typically financial, but many jurisdictions also utilize collateral sanctions that deny access to some government-provided service. To learn about the effectiveness of such penalties, we examine a U.S. policy restricting passport access for taxpayers with...

Theoretical models have suggested that sanctions may be important for enforcing sovereign debt contracts (Bulow and Rogoff, 1989a, 1989b). This paper examines the role of sanctions in promoting debt repayment during the classical gold standard period. We analyze a wide range of sanctions...