Using a new panel dataset of about 140 thousand Portuguese firms during 2006-2019, we measure the effects of globalization on firm-level performance along four dimensions: ownership of capital, employment of foreign-seasoned managers, and participation in export and import markets. Once at least...

In recent years, large fluctuations in world food prices have renewed interest in the question of how monetary policy in small open economies should react to imported price shocks. We address this issue in an open economy setting similar to previous ones except that food plays a distinctive role...

This paper examines a much overlooked link between credit markets and formalization: since access to bank credit typically requires compliance with tax and employment legislation, firms are more likely to incur such formalization costs once bank credit is more widely available at lower cost. The...

Using a new international dataset of trade-weighed exchange rates, this paper highlights a neglected adjustment mechanism in the classical gold standard literature. Since gold-pegged countries traded extensively with economies operating more flexible monetary regimes and where parity change was...

Latin America’s economic performance is mediocre at best, despite abundant natural resources and flourishing neighbors to the north. The perplexing question of how some of the wealthiest nations in the world in the nineteenth century are now the most crisis-prone has long puzzled economists...

This paper examines a much overlooked link between credit markets and formalization: since access to bank credit typically requires compliance with tax and employment legislation, firms are more likely to incur such formalization costs once bank credit is more widely available at lower cost; if...

We develop a common factor approach to reconstruct new business cycle indices for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico ("LAC-4") from an unprecedentedly comprehensive dataset spanning 135 years. We establish the robustness of our indices through a variety of tests, use the indices to explore...

An important question in international finance is to what extent stock return volatility is influenced by country location, industry affiliation, and global factors. This Paper develops a new methodology to measure these effects, in which portfolios mimicking ‘pure’ country and industry...

We examine the determinants of external crises, focusing on the role of foreign liabilities and their composition. Using a variety of statistical tools and comprehensive data spanning 1970-2011, we find that the ratio of net foreign liabilities to GDP is a significant crisis predictor. This is...