The present study aims to contribute to the debate concerning the effects on economic performance and the structure of the labor market of regulations that combine high Employment Protection Legislations (EPL) with consent for the use of fixed-term contracts (FTC). Using a Rajan and Zingales...

The paper aims to examine the role of institutions relative to economic policy and geography in explaining the differential level of development across countries over time. To that end, it attempts to construct a Development Quality Index (DQI) and an Institutional Quality Index (IQI) by using...

This paper assesses whether the allocation puzzle - the tendency for capital to flow to countries with relatively low productivity growth - is observed for foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, which should be particularly sensitive to productivity prospects. We look both at aggregate FDI flows...

The paper aims to examine policy-anchor hypotheses by analysing the impact of WTO accession process on domestic economic policies and institutions of newly acceded WTO members. It shows that the process of obtaining WTO membership, under certain circumstances, can lead to a positive improvement...

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...

Does capital flow from rich to poor countries? We revisit the Lucas paradox and explore the role of capital account restrictions in shaping capital flows at various stages of economic development. We find that, when accounting for the degree of capital account openness, the prediction of the...

This paper tests the generalized Trivers Willard hypothesis, which predicts that parents with heritable traits that increase the relative reproductive success of males compared to females will have relatively more males than females. As in Kanazawa (2005) we test if taller mothers have...

Improved consumption risk sharing is one of the fundamental predicted benefits of increased financial integration, yet the empirical evidence concerning this proposition is mixed. Using the novel empirical technique of wavelet analysis, this paper for the first time in the literature uncovers...