Pessimists on globalization claim that liberalization of markets allows multinational corporations free reign, constraining local autonomy and precipitating a race to the bottom that will endanger recent democratic gains. The optimists see the end of dirigiste economic models as favorable for...

In this paper, we assess the effect of globalization on the distribution of income within countries, focussing on the influence of foreign direct investment. We analyze data for 72 countries, 1970-90. We incorporate in our tests the Kuznets (1955) curve, measures of the character of political...

Why do some countries establish their own national eco-labeling programs and some do not? In this paper, we provide both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence suggesting that the answer to this question can shed new light on three questions that have taken center-stage in the trade and...

The present study aims to investigate the dynamics of primary commodity prices and the role of speculation over time. In particular the relationship between speculation and price volatility on the one side, and the linkage between excessive speculation and price volatility on the other side, is...

Exchange rates typically exhibit time-varying patterns in both means andvariances. The histograms of such series indicate heavy tails. In thispaper we construct models which enable a decision-maker to analyze theimplications of such time series patterns for currency risk management.Our approach...

Accurate prediction of the frequency of extreme events is of primary importance in many financialapplications such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) analysis. We propose a semi-parametric method for VaRevaluation. The largest risks are modelled parametrically, while smaller risks are captured by the...

Estimates of the effect of education on GDP (the social return) have been hard to reconcile with micro evidence on the private return to schooling. We present a simple explanation combining two ideas: imperfect substitution and endogenous skill-biased technological progress and use cross-country...

We construct models which enable a decision-maker to analyze the implications oftypical timeseries patterns of daily exchange rates for currency risk management. Ourapproach is Bayesianwhere extensive use is made of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The effects ofseveral modelcharacteristics...

Economists increasingly pay attention to social capital as an important determinant of macroeconomic growth performance. At the same time, there is discussion regarding the robustness of the results of empirical growth studies. In a seminal paper, Knack and Keefer (1997) assess the effect of...

Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers_new, which is the convention in theeconomics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose lastname initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been afirst author more...