We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic – investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result...

The 2011 Human Development Report argues that the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity must be addressed together – and identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these interlinked goals. Bold action is needed on...

Many are currently studying the origins of the financial crisis in an attempt to answer two seemingly simple questions: why did it happen, and can another crisis be prevented? Those two questions have proved incredibly divisive. The majority opinion of The United States Financial Crisis Inquiry...

This paper analyzes the responses of the United States and the economies of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) to the financial and economic crisis of 2008–2009. The crisis illuminates the fundamental structural problems within the EMU, the European Union and the United States and the scale...

Which are the main frictions and driving forces of business cycle dynamics in a small open economy? To answer this question we extend what is becoming the standard new Keynesian model in three dimensions. First, we incorporate frictions in the financing of the capital stock. Second, we model...

This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian macroeconomy by analyzing the evolution of some specific time series. The presentation is made through a sequence of graphs. Several remarkable historical points and open questions come up in the data. These include, among others, the drop in...

Macroprudential policy holds the promise of becoming a powerful tool for preventing financial crises. Financial amplification in response to domestic shocks or global spillovers and pecuniary externalities caused by Fisherian collateral constraints provide a sound theoretical foundation for this...

In this Strategic Analysis paper, we review what we believe is the most important economic policy issue facing policymakers in the United States and abroad: the prospect of a growth recession in the United States, linked to the imbalances in the U.S. current account, government, and private...

We study the basic economic problem of choice between long-term and short-term commitments under a general characterization of uncertainty (aggregate uncertainty). When contingencies are contractible, a perfect market of Arrow-Debreau contingent claims implements the social optimum. When...

We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result...