How are political events reflected in financial asset prices? Break points in sovereign debt prices are analyzed for Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Belgium during 1930-1948, using unique data from the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Unlike in countries involved in WWII, this market was...

There is a widespread feeling that a substantial and increasing share of activities take place outside the official economy. This holds, in particular, for developing and transition but also for high income economies. Such activities are unrecorded by the system of national income accounting,...

Forward looking measures like the well-known effective marginal tax rate developed by King and Fullerton (1984) are often criticized for not taking into account the complexity of the tax law. This paper derives a method of evaluating this kind of measure and of quantifying the bias resulting...

This paper studies the interaction between foreign exchange reserves and the currency composition of sovereign debt in emerging countries. Focusing on inflation targeting countries, we find that holdings of foreign reserves are associated with higher local currency sovereign debt, an exchange...

Theories of competitive federalism generally focus on exit as the principal mechanism for making governments responsive to the interests of those who are subject to their powers. This paper draws attention to the necessity to specify more clearly the meaning of “exit” in light of the fact...