In this paper we assess the significance of a set of threats of domestic violence in ten West African countries that we argue limit the potential of women in particular and the development of society. Our data consists of the most recent year of a country-specific Demographic and Health Survey...

This paper studies the impact of financial constraints on exporter dynamics, and the role of financial intermediation in international trade. We propose a two-country general equilibrium model economy in which entrepreneurs and lenders engage in longterm credit relationships. Financial markets...

I analyze international tax competition in a framework of dynamic optimal taxation for strategically competing governments. The global capital stock is determined endogenously as in a neo-classical growth model. With perfect commitment and a complete tax system (where all factors of production...

This paper challenges the conventional academic view that international outsourcing is just another form of gainful trade. Contrary to this view, we show that labor-service outsourcing can reduce the high-wage country's welfare even when product-market trade is beneficial, within a model that...

The adoption rate of building energy standards in the US has been increasing since the mid- 1990s as a result of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct). However, most of the evidence on the energy savings that accrue from commercial building energy standards is based on engineering simulations,...

While green-labeled buildings have been found to sell at a premium compared to nearby controls with similar observable characteristics, the voluntary nature of the labeling decision implies green-labeled buildings may have different unmeasured characteristics that may account for at least a...

Contrary to conventional wisdom, higher minimum wages may lead to greater levels of employment under perfect competition. We demonstrate this possibility in a simple generalequilibrium model with two goods produced by two factors and consumed by two representative households. Within our model,...

This paper asks whether comprehensive, non-interest government size has an inverted Ushaped effect on private economic output in Canada and whether its current size is too large relative to the estimated tipping point. Using data from 1929 through 2011 and controlling for both correlations...

We pursue a novel empirical strategy to identify monetary news shocks and determine their effects on the US economy during the Greenspan-Bernanke era of Federal Reserve Chairmanship. We first construct a monetary policy residual as gap between the observed federal funds rate and a policy rule....

The news-shock literature interprets empirical news-shock identifications as signals about future productivity. Under this view, changes in productivity cause changes in expectations. I investigate an alternative interpretation whereby changes in expectations cause changes in productivity. I...