How is economic policy made? In this paper we study a key determinant of the answer to the question: lobbying by fi…rms. Estimating a binary choice model of …firm behavior, we fi…nd signifi…cant evidence for the idea that barriers to entry induce persistence in lobbying. The existence of...

Over time and across countries, researchers have noted frequent and mostly unexplained gender differences in the levels of support for policies of free or freer trade: women tend to be less favorable toward policies of liberalizing trade than men. Using an economic security explanation based...

The global financial crisis has reiterated the need for Africa to build resilience to global output shocks. In this paper we examine empirically the role of intra-regional and intra-African trade linkages in being an absorber of the global output shocks in two African regional economic...

We study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of U.S. …firms using matched employer-employee data. Unlike most previous work, we use the …firm as the lens of analysis to account for a greater level of heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled immigrant admissions...

Responsiveness of exchange rates to external price shocks as well as their ability to serve as a traditional vehicle for a transmission of these shocks to domestic prices is affected by exchange rate arrangement adopted by monetary authorities. As a result, exchange rate volatility determines...

Most exchange of farm land in rural china is conducted by local governments rather than by decentralized land markets. We investigate the forces determining the reallocation behavior of village governments, and hence the formation of the right "security of tenure". We also examine the...

Bulgaria started the transition in the early 90’s with a sovereign default and debt restructuring. Later on, under a strict fiscal discipline, the country succeeded to reduce significantly its debt burden and is currently among the top EU performers in that respect. The current debt...

The shortages of entrepreneurial skills have lowered search effectiveness of potential young entrepreneurs and the rate of youth start-ups. Our paper contributes to closing a gap in the entrepreneurship and development literature with a model of costly firm creation and skill differences between...

We examine time-varying stock market comovements in Central Europe employing the asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation multivariate GARCH model. Using daily data from 2001 to 2011, we find that the correlations among stock markets in Central Europe and between Central Europe vis–à–vis...

This paper first describes the major concerns associated with SWFs, mainly revolving around state ownership and lack of transparency. It then focuses on the National Fund for the Future of Kazakhstan (the “oil fund”, or NOF) and Samruk Kazyna (SK), the holding company for state owned...