We use retail transaction prices for a multinational retailer to examine the extent and permanence of violations of the law of one price. For identical products, we find typical deviations of 20-50 percent, with some evidence for convergence over time. Such differences might be due to...

The authors review recent international price comparisons to examine the veracity of claims about “rip-off Britainâ€. They reach three conclusions. First, methodologically, the data requirements for a meaningful price comparison are very demanding and most of the evidence does not meet...

This paper surveys the debate on arms-length and relationship-based financial systems with a special focus on the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. The paper argues that while the initial dominance of relationship-based systems in the region is consistent with the implications of the...

Recent evidence suggests that while real exchange rates exhibit mean reversion, the reversion only sets in once a minimum "threshold" distance from the mean has been exceeded. The non-linearity has generally been attributed to costly arbitrage, which requires a minimum divergence before the...

Is there a single recipe for fast growth? Much of the recent cross-section empirical growth literature implicitly assumes there is. Yet both development and growth theory as well as casual empiricism suggest pervasive non-linearities in the growth process. Low inflation may grease the wheels of...