We measure income uncertainty at the level of U.S. states, and the extent to which it has been reduced through risksharing, using a method recently developed by Athanasoulis and van Wincoop (2000). Risk is measured as the standard deviation of state-specific income growth uncertainty, measured...

The 2008 –2009 financial crises, while originating in the United States, witnessed a drop in asset prices and output that was at least as large in the rest of the world. We investigate, in the context of a simple two-country model, whether this could have been the result of transmission...

In an influential contribution that predates the recent renewed interest in portfolio choice models of international capital flows, Kraay and Ventura (2000) o¤er a "new rule" for the current account that puts portfolio choice at the center of the analysis. The new rule says that in response to...

We document aggregate income growth uncertainty at the state level, and the extent to which this uncertainty is reduced by risksharing through financial markets and federal fiscal policy. A methodology is adopted that is closely connected to the empirical growth literature. It does not rely on...

The sharp increase in both gross and net capital flows over the past two decades has led to a renewed interest in their determinants. Most existing theories of international capital flows are in the context of models with only one asset, which only have implications for net capital flows, not...

This paper surveys the measurement of trade costs: what we know and don't know but may usefully attempt to learn. Partial and incomplete data on direct measures of costs go with inference on implicit costs from trade flows and prices. Total trade costs in rich countries are large. The ad valorem...

Gravity equations have been widely used to infer trade flow effects of various institutional arrangements. We show that estimated gravity equations do not have a theoretical foundation. This implies both that estimation suffers from omitted variables bias and that comparative statics analysis is...

We document that business cycles of U.S. Census regions are substantially more synchronized than those of European Union countries, both over the past four decades and the past two decades. Data from regions within the four largest European countries confirm the presence of a European border...