The paper analyses whether, and to what extent, emerging market economies (EMEs) have systemic importance for global financial markets, above and beyond their influence during crises episodes. Using a novel database of exogenous economic and political shocks for 14 systematically relevant EMEs,...

A striking and unexpected feature of the financial crisis has been the sharp appreciation of the US dollar against virtually all currencies globally. The paper finds that negative US-specific macroeconomic shocks during the crisis have triggered a significant strengthening of the US dollar,...

Researchers are often interested in estimating the causal effect of some treatment on individual criminality. For example, two recent relatively prominent papers have attempted to estimate the respective direct effects of marriage and gang participation on individual criminal activity. One...

Propensity score matching provides an estimate of the effect of a 'treatment' variable on an outcome variable that is largely free of bias arising from an association between treatment status and observable variables. However, matching methods are not robust against 'hidden bias' arising from...