Competing explanations of the resource curse are tested using panel data. The data support the existence of a mineral resource curse for developing countries with weak institutions, consistent with the hypothesis that owners of mineral resources use weak institutions and openness to trade to...

New empirical estimates of the effects of capital restrictions on growth support capital account liberalization, especially for developed countries. Capital restrictions reduce the benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI) on growth in developing countries. Estimation results for long-term...

Fiscal policy is examined in the context of a variable price IS-LM model with a full-employment constraint. Debt-financed fiscal actions are shown to be destabilizing, regardless of the impact of debt finance on aggregate demand. The difficulty arises because growth of the capital stock is...

Following the success of renowned Caribbean offshore centers, several small islands have enacted offshore banking policies as a strategy for increasing economic growth. Several empirical studies have assessed the growth effect of such policies, but none accounts for sector size when estimating...

The banking crisis of 1933, which forced a national holiday closing the entire U.S. financial system, is often blamed on either publication of the names of banks borrowing from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a speculative run on the gold-backed dollar due to fears that president-elect...

Primary school enrollments have increased rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa, spurring concerns about low levels of learning. We analyze field experiments in Kenya and Uganda that assessed whether the Reading to Learn program, implemented by the Aga Khan Foundation in both countries, improved...