Mexican migration to the United States has been a very important issue throughout the twentieth century, and its relevance has reached unprecedented levels during the last two decades. Even though there is a huge body of literature that analyses many different aspects of this phenomenon, the...

We examine the impact of culture on the work behavior of second-generation immigrant women in Canada. We contribute to the current literature by analyzing the role of intermarriage in intergenerational transmission of culture and its subsequent effect on labor market outcomes. Using relative...

Activity and employment rates for immigrant women in many industrialized countries display a great variability across national groups. The aim of this paper is to assess whether this well-known fact is due to a voluntary decision (i.e. large reservation wages by the immigrants) or to an...

Mexican migration to the United States has been a very important issue throughout the twentieth century, and its relevance has reached unprecedented levels during the last two decades. Even though there is a huge body of literature that analyses many different aspects of this phenomenon, the...

In 1872, Japan established a national banking system modeled closely on that in existence in the United States at the time. The experience of the two countries with national banking was very different, however. The paper documents that the Japanese national banking system was smaller, less...

We focus on four previous systemic financial crises that the United States has experienced since 1870. These include the crisis of 1873 (called the Great Depression until the 1930s), the 1893 crisis, the panic of 1907, and the Great Depression. Given that all of the earlier crises predate the...

We present a new monthly wholesale price index for Canada, 1840-71, comparing fluctuations in the Canadian macroeconomy with fluctuations in similar U.S. and British indexes. Canadian prices move through distinct phases: the 1840s rise in prices and the decline in the depression of 1848-49; the...

In Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk (1996), Peter L. Bernstein illustrates how the mastery of risk has driven modern Western society into converting 'the future from an enemy into an opportunity'. Far from being an antagonist, as the unpredictable whim of gods or mysterious fate,...

Historical experience is often invoked in the modern debate on competition among reserve currencies, yet little is known about quantitative aspects or institutional features of reserve management. By drawing on newly obtained data on foreign exchange reserves, especially those broken down by...