Price and income elasticities estimated from a country's export demand function are used both to predict and to prescribe effective export strategies. But the focus on elasticities has led to the neglect of an important empirical regularity: a strong persistencein the growth rate of a country's...

Before East Asia's financial meltdown in the second half of 1997, there appeared to be prospects for an uneasy consensus on the East Asian"miracle", a consensus that recognized the role of the entrepreneurialstate in accelerating industrial development but emphasized the"market-friendly'nature...

Academics pay little attention to international bank lending, focusing instead on rapidly growing market segments such as the international bond market and derivative credit instruments. The authors argue for paying more attention to international bank lending. Why? Three reasons. First, the...

Using a specially designed survey, the authors identify the characteristics of Japanese firms likely to invest world wide and in key Asian countries and country characteristics associated with Japanese investment in Asia. Investment abroad is related negatively to research and development (R&D)...

The authors develop comparative indices of environmental policy and performance for 31 countries using a quantified analysis of reports prepared for the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development. In cross-country regressions, they find a very strong, continuous association...

It is easy to say that the International Monetary Fund should not resort to financial rescue for countries in crisis; this is hard to do when there is no alternative. That is where collective action clauses come in. Collective action clauses are designed to facilitate debt restructuring by the...