International trade economists typically assume that TFP for each industry is the same in every country. This paper casts doubt on this hypothesis, finding large and persistent TFP differences across countries. The paper considers measurement issues in depth, and a methodology for international...

Federal grants policy changed significantly during the eighties. Grants to states and localities decreased as a share of GDP, the first sustained decline in aid since the forties. Restrictions on the use of federal funds were eased with the conversion of categorical matching aid programs into...

We empirically examine stock price index data for eight developed and ten emerging markets from 1970 to 1997. There were nine stock market crises over our sample period, three each in the developed stock markets, the Asian stock markets and the Latin American stock markets. We find important...

This paper presents evidence that speculative bubbles can have sizeable effects on house prices, and on housing investment. We infer that deviations of asset prices from fundamental values may have serious consequences for real activity, and explore some policy implications. The analysis relies...

Does the adoption of an inflation target by a country have an effect on that country's rate of inflation and on inflation's interaction with real economic variables? Does inflation targeting alter private-sector expectations? The question of effectiveness must be posed as a counterfactual -did...