We investigate how protectionist policies influence short-run economic growth. Our empirical strategy exploits an extraordinary tax scandal that gave rise to an unexpected change of government in Sweden. A free-trade majority in parliament was overturned by a protectionist majority in 1887. We...

This paper proposes and applies an analytical framework to assess vulnerabilities of emerging and developing economies to the global financial and economic crisis. The analytical framework identifies six different channels of vulnerability to the global financial and economic crisis and...

In this paper we study long run economic growth as a sequence of accelerations, slowdowns and crises, and estimate the role of institutions and macroeconomic policies in determining this sequence. We analyze the joint effect of policies and institutions on the frequency of the four growth...

This paper puts forward the concept and analytic expression of the environmental pressure index (EPI) for discovering and warning an economic crisis. Empirical researches show, EPI can effectively indicate that the economic crisis occurs or will occur. It is worth noting, EPI can also be applied...

In this paper, I explore the politically contested association between the degree of capitalism, captured by measures of economic freedom, and the risk and characteristics of economic crisis. After offering some brief theoretical considerations, I estimate the effects of economic freedom on...

We examine a panel of 70 countries during 1966-2010 and utilize Reinhart and Rogoff crisis dates to estimate the effects of crises on the size and scope of government over both 5-year and 10-year horizons. We also estimate cross-section regressions using 40-year (1970-2010) changes in government...