January 2000 - No - there is no systematic association between interest rates and the outcome of speculative attacks. Drawing on evidence from a large sample of speculative attacks in industrial and developing countries, Kraay argues that high interest rates do not defend currencies against...

Measuring the gain in income from migration is complicated by non-random selection of migrants from the general population, making it hard to obtain an appropriate comparison group of non-migrants. This paper uses a migrant lottery to overcome this problem, providing an experimental measure of...