Many development economists prescribe trade as a poverty-reducing formula. But how is this elixir supposed to work? This article contributes to the lively debate on this topic with household evidence from Tanzania - a poor country even within sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region. About 81% of...

During the 2007-09 financial crisis, there were severe reductions in the liquidity of financial markets, runs on the shadow banking system, and destabilizing defaults and near-defaults of major financial institutions. In response, the Federal Reserve, in its role as lender of last resort (LOLR),...

Household debt repayment behavior has been understudied, especially empirically, despite the heightened debate on rising household debt, personal bankruptcy filings, and arrears. In this paper, we use data from the European Community Household Panel to analyze the determinants of household debt...

This paper exploits the differential financing needs across industrial sectors and provides strong empirical evidence that financing constraints of small businesses are important in explaining the unemployment dynamics around the Great Recession. In particular, we show that workers in small...

Conventional wisdom holds that individuals find it difficult to obtain new credit post-bankruptcy. Using credit bureau data, we test this hypothesis and show that more than 90% of bankrupt individuals receive credit shortly after filing. Individuals with good credit history prior to filing have...

Exploiting the differential financing needs across industrial sectors, this paper shows that financing constraints of small businesses in the United States are one of the drivers explaining the unemployment dynamics during the Great Recession. We show that workers in small firms are more likely...

A number of researchers have recently argued that the growth of the shadow banking system in the years preceding the recent U.S. financial crisis was driven by rising demand for "money-like" claims--short-term, safe instruments (STSI)--from institutional investors and nonfinancial firms. These...

During the 2007-09 financial crisis, there were severe reductions in the liquidity of financial markets, runs on the shadow banking system, and destabilizing defaults and near-defaults of major financial institutions. In response, the Federal Reserve, in its role as lender of last resort (LOLR),...