This paper studies the trends and cycles of informal employment. It first presents a theoretical model where the size of informal employment is determined by the relative costs and benefits of informality and the distribution of workers' skills. In the long run, informal employment varies with...

We analyze how a wealth shift to emerging countries may lead to instability in developed countries. Investors exposed to expropriation risk are willing to pay a safety premium to invest in countries with good property rights. Domestic intermediaries compete for such cheap funding by carving out...

This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...

The Worldwide Governance Indicators, reporting estimates of six dimensions of governance for over 200 countries between 1996 and 2005, have become widely used among policymakers and academics. They have also attracted some explicit written criticisms. In this short paper the authors synthesize...

The authors examine empirically how domestic structural characteristics related to openness and product- and factor-market flexibility influence the impact that terms-of-trade shocks can have on aggregate output. For this purpose, they apply an econometric methodology based on semi-structural...

The authors report on the latest version of the worldwide governance indicators, covering 213 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance from 1996 until end-2005: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory...