This paper studies the relationship between patience and comparative development through a combination of reduced-form analyses and model estimations. Based on a globally representative dataset on time preference in 76 countries, we document two sets of stylized facts. First, patience is...

This paper studies the relationship between patience and comparative development through a combination of reduced-form analyses and model estimations. Based on a globally representative dataset on time preference in 76 countries, we document two sets of stylized facts. First, patience is...

This article reexamines the role of long-run endogenous impatience in homothetic growth paths. Using a class of intertemporal preferences assuming a continuous time generator representation, the existence, uniqueness and determinacy properties of a homothetic growth path with endogenous rates of...

This research explores the origins of observed differences in time preference across countries and regions. Exploiting a natural experiment associated with the expansion of suitable crops for cultivation in the course of the Columbian Exchange, the research establishes that pre-industrial...

We discuss the pros of adopting government-issued digital currencies as well as a supranational digital iCurrency. One such pro is to get rid of paper money (and coinage), a ubiquitous medium for spreading germs, as highlighted by the recent coronavirus outbreak. We set forth three policy...

We discuss the idea of a purely algorithmic universal world iCurrency set forth in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541" https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541 and expanded in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330" https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330 in light of recent developments, including Libra. Is...

In recent weeks and months, a number of market commentators have drawn comparisons between the prevailing economic landscape and previous financial crises, episodes and events. These have ranged from talk of a new ‘Volcker Shock’ to a repeat of the 1987 stockmarket crash, the dot.com burst...

This is the first paper studying collateral choices in one of the main short-term funding markets, the repurchase agreement (repo) market. In general collateral repos, the borrower can choose which bond he delivers as collateral out of a predefined list. Collateral availability and opportunity...

The law of association as exposed by David Ricardo and generalized by Ludwig von Mises cannot directly grasp what is at stake in exchanges involving specialization in uncertainty bearing. In this article we explain why the entrepreneurial function as conceptualized by Frank Knight and Mises does...