For a long time, abundant natural resources brought Iceland a high and volatile real exchange rate with adverse effects on manufacturing and services. During 2003-2008, another national treasure, the sovereign's AAA rating, was used by privatized banks to attract foreign capital, elevating the...

Unsustainable accumulation of debt precedes financial crises. The recent Western financial crisis was no exception in this regard. The external debt of Greece, Iceland, Ireland, and Spain increased exponentially, in Iceland at a rate higher than the rate of interest on foreign debt. The Ponzi...

This paper extends the literature on the Dutch disease by showing how natural resources can reduce secondary-sector employment and investment through channels involving labor-market externalities and exchange-rate volatility. We then look at data from Iceland - which is one of few OECD countries...

This paper looks at the importance of scale economies - defined in terms of the benefits from innovation - from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. We argue that one can only gauge the degree of scale economies at the industry level by taking account of the degree of specialization...