It is widely agreed that a fiscal rule should boost discipline and credibility, reduce macroeconomic volatility, and be easily understood. To support such goals, a government may run structural surpluses and accumulate a precautionary cushion of assets on behalf of agents who do not enjoy access...

Intuitively, by increasing the opportunity cost of engaging in criminal activities, positive economic shocks should reduce crime. However, the empirical evidence on the relationship between economic shocks and criminal behavior is at best ambiguous. This may be because certain types of shocks...

While there is a large literature on how conflict affects entrepreneurship and investment, little is known about how the end of a conflict affects businesses and firms’ creation. The direction of the effect is not obvious as conflicts bequest poverty and inequality --reducingthe returns of...