For over a decade, The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, Washington's preeminent think tank, have tracked the march of economic freedom around the world with the influential Index of Economic Freedom. Since 1995, the Index has brought Smith's theories about liberty, prosperity and...

In this paper we question the consensus of using a binary crisisdefinition for empirical crisis models. We believe that the most severeshortcomings of the crisis models today are in the crisis definition rather than the explanatory variables ...

The Great War of 1914-18 constituted a major rupture for the economies of Europe in several respects. It marked the end of almost a century of uninterrupted economic growth. It ended a long period of near-universal currency stability, and set in motion a painful process of de-globalisation. It...

In this essay I review Sylvia Nasar’s long awaited new history of economics, Grand Pursuit. Idescribe how the book is an economic history of the period from 1850-1950, withdistinguished economists’ stories inserted in appropriate places. Nasar’s goal is to show howeconomists work, but also...

Several policy issues arise in this context. If households are unable or unwilling to move inold age, their consumption behaviour may be constrained by asset illiquidity...

We contribute to the intense debate on the real effects of …fiscal stimuli by showingthat the impact of government expenditure shocks depends crucially on key countrycharacteristics, such as the level of development, exchange rate regime, openness totrade, and public indebtedness. Based on a...

A weakening dependence on rain-fed agriculture has been a hallmark of the economictransformation of countries throughout history. Rural citizens in developing countries to-day, however, remain highly exposed to fluctuations in the weather. This exposure affectsthe incomes these citizens earn and...

A sample of Iowa farm couples is used to evaluate whether off-farm labor supply decisions respond to permanent and transitory components of farm income. Off-farm labor supply of both spouses declines in response to increases in permanent farm income. Farm wives also reduce off-farm labor supply...