Microeconomically, the case for liberalization is dubious under increasing returns to scale and when firms can invest directly in productivity enhancement. Distributional effects of commercial policy changes can be regressive and large, but the 'rents' they generate can serve as a basis for...

This paper looks at the evolution of the terms of trade between commodities and manufactures in the twentieth century. A statistical analysis of the relative price series for 24 commodities and of eight indices reveals a significant deterioration in their barter terms of trade over the course of...

This paper analyzes the role of real exchange rate (RER) policies in promoting economic development. Markets provide a suboptimal amount of investment in sectors characterized by learning spillovers. We show that a stable and competitive RER policy may correct for this externality and other...

Economic structuralists use a broad, systemwide approach to understanding development, and this textbook assumes a structuralist perspective in its investigation of why a host of developing countries have failed to grow at 2 percent or more since 1960. Sensitive to the wide range of factors that...

The current approach to resolving sovereign debt crises does not work: sovereign debt restructurings come too late and do too little. Though they impose enormous costs on societies, these restructurings are often not deep enough to provide the conditions for economic recovery (as illustrated by...

This paper analyzes the role of real exchange rate (RER) policies in promoting economic development. Markets provide a suboptimal amount of investment in sectors characterized by learning spillovers. We show that a stable and competitive RER policy may correct for this externality and other...

This paper synthesizes recent advances in the theoretical and empirical literature on capital controls. We start by observing that international capital flows have both benefits and costs, but some of these are not internalized by individual actors and thus constitute externalities. The...