This paper examines the time path of saving rates between 1970 and 2010 in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico through the lens of the neoclassical growth model.The findings indicate that two factors, the growth rate of TFP and fiscal policy, are able to account for some of the major fluctuations in...

We present new measures of market power for the banking industry in Colombia and estimate their effect on the cost of credit for non-financial firms. Our results suggest that bank competition increased during the 2006-2008 period–even as concentration increased–but decreased thereafter....

This paper presents a new dataset of capital control restrictions on both inflows and outflows of 10 categories of assets for 100 countries over the period 1995 to 2013. Building on the data in Schindler (2009) and other datasets based on the analysis of the IMF’s Annual Report on Exchange...

In this paper we consider a general equilibrium model where heterogeneous agents specialize either in legitimate market activities or in criminal activities and majority rule determines the share of income redistributed and the expenditures devoted to the apprehension of criminals. We calibrate...

Latin American countries have long exhibited low levels of saving rates when compared to other countries in relatively similar stages of economic development (e.g., Asian economies). Motivated by this fact, this paper examines the time path of the saving rates between 1970 and 2010 in three...

The aging of the populations in the OECD countries has prompted various calls for reforming the existing pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems. Currently, there is renewed discussion in the United States about partial privatization where a fraction of the social security payroll tax would be...

Publicly held debt to GDP ratio in the U.S. has reached 68% in 2011 and is expected to continue rising. Many proposals regarding the ways to curb the government deficit and the resulting debt are being discussed. In this paper, we use the standard neoclassical growth model to examine the...

This paper provides new evidence about the link between firm level total factor productivity (TFP) and stock returns. We estimate firm level TFP and show that it is strongly related to several firm characteristics such as size, the book to market ratio, investment, and hiring rate. Low...