We study the effect of financial integration on the transmission of international business cycles. In a sample of 20 developed countries between 1978 and 2009 we find that, in periods without financial crises, increases in bilateral financial linkages are associated with more divergent output...

We find that the United States in the 1950s and 1960s was characterized by strong "catch-up growth" in the south with capital owing from rich northern states to poorer southern states - consistent with the predictions of the simple neoclassical model. After the 1970s, "catch-up growth" is mainly...

We analyze the impact of financial globalization on business cycle synchronization utilizing a proprietary database on banks' international exposure for industrialized countries during 1978- 2006. Theory makes ambiguous predictions and identification has been elusive due to lack of bilateral...

Using country- and region-level data, I investigate the effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility in Africa during 1985-2000. Results differ depending on the variation used and the estimation method. Between estimates that exploit cross-sectional variation suggest a positive significant effect of HIV/AIDS...

We provide empirical evidence that risk sharing enhances specialization in production. To the best of our knowledge, this well-established and important theoretical proposition has not been tested before. Our empirical procedure is summarized as follows. First, we construct a measure of...

We decompose capital flows--both debt and equity--into public and private components and study their relationship with productivity growth. This exercise reveals that international capital flows are mainly shaped by government decisions and sovereign to sovereign transactions. Specifically, we...

We study how the 2007--2009 crisis has changed the impact of financial integration on the transmission of international business cycles, focusing on a sample of 20 developed countries between 1978 and 2009. We find that while increases in financial linkages were associated with more divergent...