Countries with intermediate levels of institutional quality suffer larger output contractions following sudden stops of capital inflows than less developed nations. However, countries with strong institutions seldom experience significant falls in output after capital flow reversals. We...

Is tax competition good for economic growth? The paper addresses this question by means of a simple model of economic growth in which a wasteful Leviathan state sets taxes and provides productive input. Wasteful behaviour is restricted by the voter, who reduces political support if her income is...

We analyse the effect of the uncertainty about the fundamentals on the probability of sudden stops of capital flows from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Our model predicts that the probability of crises increases with the uncertainty, ie. the dispersion of private signals about the true...

We survey several key mechanisms that explain the composition of international capital flows: foreign direct investment, foreign portfolio investment and debt flows (bank loans and bonds). In particular, we focus on the following market frictions: asymmetric information in capital markets and...

The introduction of the euro marks a milestone in the process of European financial market integration. This paper analyzes the implications of the euro for cross-border banking activities. A portfolio model is used which captures the role of banks as providers of informational and of...