One reason why countries service their external debts is the fear that default might lead to shrinkage of international trade. If so, then creditors should systematically lend more to countries with which they share closer trade links. We develop a simple theoretical model to capture this...

This Paper estimates the effect on international trade of three multilateral organizations intended to increase trade: 1) the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the Generalized Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); 2) the International Monetary Fund (IMF); and 3) the...

I search for a 'scale' effect in countries. I use a panel data set that includes 200 countries over forty years and link the population of a country to a host of economic and social phenomena. Using both graphical and statistical techniques, I search for an impact of size on the level of income,...

Conventional wisdom holds that protectionism is counter-cyclic; tariffs, quotas and the like grow during recessions. While that may have been a valid description of the data before the Second World War, it is no longer accurate. In the post-war era, protectionism has not actually moved...

In contrast to earlier recessions, the monetary regimes of many small economies have not changed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. This is due in part to the fact that many small economies continue to use hard exchange rate fixes, a reasonably durable regime. However, most of the...

This paper explores the relationship between inflation and the existence of a publicly-traded, long-maturity, nominal, domestic-currency bond market. Bond holders suffer from inflation and could be a potent anti-inflationary force; I ask whether their presence is apparent empirically. I use a...

34 recent studies have investigated the effect of currency union on trade, resulting in 754 point estimates of the effect. This Paper is a quantitative attempt to summarize the current state of debate; meta-analysis is used to combine the disparate estimates. The chief findings are that: a) the...

This Paper characterizes the integration patterns of international currency unions (such as the CFA Franc zone and the East Caribbean Currency Area). We empirically explore different features of currency unions, and compare them both to countries with sovereign monies, and to regions within...

Does leaving a currency union reduce international trade? We answer this question using a large annual panel data set covering over 230 countries from 1948-97. During this sample over one hundred pairs of countries had currency union dissolutions; they experienced economically and statistically...

This Paper estimates the effect of sovereign debt renegotiation on international trade. Sovereign default may be associated with a subsequent decline in international trade either because creditors want to deter default by debtors, or because trade finance dries up after default. To estimate the...