Using a large sample of countries over the 1990s, this paper examines the extent to which institutions' functioning disables a greater participation of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the world economy. It focuses on the impact on manufactured exports and FDI attractiveness and...

We study the volatility of the policy chosen by a committee whose members have volatile preferences. It is smaller than if it was chosen by a single member, smaller the larger the size of the committee, and smaller the volatility of members' preferences.

This paper studies the relationship between the size of the shadow economy and generalized trust, on a cross-section of countries, both developed and developing, and finds that it is significantly negative. That relationship is robust to controlling for a large set of economic, policy, and...

We explore the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in developing countries, distinguishing between mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and Greenfield investment. We find that these two types of FDI differ substantially with respect to their influence on growth. While...

This paper aims at discovering the decision rule the Governing Council of the ECB uses to set interest rates. We construct a Taylor rule for each member of the council and for the euro area as a whole, and aggregate the interest rates they produce using several classes of decision-making...

This paper investigates the role of a free press and of the circulation of information on the capacity of a country to declare an exchange regime that is different from the regime it de facto implements. We put forward consistent evidence that increased press freedom and easier access to...

This paper studies the relationship between a microfinance institution (MFI) and its credit officers when the latter discriminate against a group of the target population. Using survey data from Uganda, we provide evidence that credit officers are more biased against disabled borrowers than...

This paper investigates the role of a free press and the circulation of information on the capacity of a country to declare an exchange regime that differs from the regime it implements de facto. We report consistent evidence that greater press freedom and easier access to information result in...

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