There exists a persistent disagreement in the literature over the effect of business cycles on economic growth. This paper offers a solution to this disagreement, suggesting that volatility carries a positive direct effect, but also a negative indirect effect, operating through the insurance...

I contribute to the resurging debate on the reform of the international monetary system by asking: How does the size of the public sector under different exchange rate regimes affect macroeconomic stability and welfare? In response to a meeting of the Bretton Woods Commission in 1993, renowned...

We examine the effect of population size on government size for a panel of 130 countries for the period between 1970 and 2014. We show that previous analyses of the nexus between population size and government size are incorrectly specified and fail to consider the influence of cross-sectional...

This paper explores the determinants of public employment across the world and finds that it is negatively associated with country size (by population) and positively associated with the income level. The findings show that a country's openness to trade is positively associated with public...