Time-diary data from 27 countries show a negative relationship between GDP per capita and gender differences in total work—for pay and at home. In rich non-Catholic countries men and women average about the same amount of total work. Survey results show scholars and the general public believe...

Using time-diary data from 25 countries, we demonstrate that there is a negative relationship between real GDP per capita and the female-male difference in total work time per day – the sum of work for pay and work at home. In rich northern countries on four continents, including the United...

Structural vector autoregressive (VAR) models were introduced in 1980 as an alternative to traditional large-scale macroeconometric models when the theoretical and empirical support for these models became increasingly doubtful. Initial applications of the structural VAR methodology often were...

The hosting and bidding for the Olympic Games is a natural experiment to test for anticipation effects in macroeconomics. We examine these effects using panel data for 184 countries during the period 1950-2006. We find that hosting the Games generates positive investment, consumption, and output...

Does fiscal consolidation lead to social unrest? Using cross-country evidence for the period 1919 to 2008, we examine the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability. We test if the relationship...

This paper proposes a new approach for modeling investor fear after rare disasters. The key element is to take into account that investors' information about fundamentals driving rare downward jumps in the dividend process is not perfect. Bayesian learning implies that beliefs about the...

This paper shows how the richer frequency and variety of fiscal policy shocks available in an international sample can be analyzed recognizing the heterogeneity that exists across different countries. The main conclusion of our empirical analysis is that the question 'what is the fiscal policy...

A key precursor of twentieth-century financial crises in emerging and advanced economies alike was the rapid buildup of leverage. Those emerging economies that avoided leverage booms during the 2000s also were most likely to avoid the worst effects of the twenty-first century’s first global...