analysis shows that innovations that have allowed firms to issue equity more flexibly can plausibly account for the lower output volatility together with the higher volatility in the financial structure of firms.

During the last three decades, the stock of government debt has increased in most developed countries. During the same period, we also observe a significant liberalization of international financial markets and an increase in income inequality in several industrialized countries. In this paper...

Over the last three decades there has been a dramatic increase in the size of the financial sector and in the compensation of financial executives. This increase has been associated with greater risk-taking and the use of more complex financial instruments. Parallel to this trend, the...

During the last three decades the stock of government debt has increased in most developed countries. During the same period inter- national capital markets have been liberalized. In this paper we de- velop a two-country political economy model with incomplete markets and endogenous government...

The 2008-2009 US crisis is characterized by an unprecedented degree of international synchronization, as all other G7 countries experienced large contractions. The international synchronization of the recent crisis is not present in many of the previous US contractions. We study a two-country...