We examine the effect that revenue windfalls from international commodity price shocks have on sovereign bond spreads using panel data for 30 emerging market economies during the period 1997-2007. Our main finding is that positive commodity price shocks lead to a significant reduction in the...

We use annual variation in rainfall to examine the effects that exogenous, transitory income shocks have on remittances in a panel of 42 Sub-Saharan African countries during the period 1960-2007. Our main finding is that these income shocks have a significant positive effect on remittances, but...

We criticize existing empirical results on the detrimental effects of natural resource dependence on the rate of economic growth after controlling for institutional quality, openness, and initial income. These results do not survive once we use instrumental variables techniques to correct for...