Independent central banks prefer balanced budgets due to the long-run connection between deficits and inflation and can enforce their preference through interest rate increases and denial of credit to the government. We argue that legal central bank independence (CBI) deters fiscal deficits...

Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) allow developing countries to trade some policy autonomy for improved access to internationally mobile capital. While the impact on capital flows is widely written about, BITs' impact on policymaking is typically studied more narrowly in the context of...