The oil industry is the richest and most influential industry in the world. The industry has moved the fates of nations. Oil is required to fight wars and exert power, and the restriction of this energy source is paramount to the restriction of movement, control, and in the end, power....

China’s development model faces an external constraint that could cause an economic hard landing. China has become a global manufacturing powerhouse, and its size now renders its export-led growth strategy unsustainable. China relies on the U.S. market, but the scale of its exports is...

The idea of a flat tax, a tax levied at a single rate, has become an increasingly discussed and implemented fiscal strategy across Europe and the rest of the world. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania adopted flat tax systems in 1994 and 1995, making them the first modern countries to adopt flat...

This thesis explores the important link between macroeconomic dynamics and the financial sector. The first essay studies Epstein-Zin preferences, which are found to be able to account for both aggregate macroeconomic dynamics and asset prices. In the first essay, I compare different solution...

The episodes of financial crises in many parts of the world during the 1990s have sparked interest in identifying channels through which such crises spread from one country to another. Researchers have identified several factors that may have sparked and induced contagion. This study further...

Bio:Chris Robinson studied economics at the London School of Economics and the University of Chicago, and has been a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario since 1977. His research has focused on human capital and wage issues including human capital specificity, labour supply,...

The Zambian economy has grown relatively fast over the last decade. This article discusses the challenge of using these growing resources effectively to improve the welfare of the population and reduce poverty. The poverty head count index is found to have declined between 1998 and 2004 by about...

Recent spikes in oil prices have thrown light on how economic activity in emerging markets may be impacted by oil price shocks. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the effect of oil price shocks on emerging markets. It tests for the existence of an asymmetrical relationship between oil...

This paper investigates the impact of Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, on participant credit behavior. The motivation of the research is derived from previous studies which indicate that conditional cash transfer programs have effects on households aside from...