The World Bank and the IMF have adopted a debt sustainability framework (DSF) to evaluate the risk of debt distress in Low Income Countries (LICs). At the core of the DSF are empirically-based thresholds for each of five different measures of the debt burden (the “debt threshold approach”...

We use a panel of historical patent data covering a large range of countries over the past century to study the evolution of innovation across time and space and its effect on productivity. We document a substantial rise of international knowledge spillovers as measured by patent citations since...

We use a panel of historical patent data covering a large range of countries over the past century to study the evolution of innovation across time and space and its effect on productivity. We document a substantial rise of international knowledge spillovers as measured by patent citations since...

This paper uses the rules of engineering as a rhetorical device to discuss why the international financial architecture needs a structured mechanism for dealing with sovereign insolvency. The paper suggests that the most important problem with the status-quo relates to delayed defaults and...

This paper summarizes the main findings of the literature on the relationship between financial and economic development (the known knowns), points to directions for future research (the known unknowns), and then speculates on the third Rumsfeldian category. The known knowns section organizes...