We argue that the disincentive effect of a debt overhang is generally small and consequently that debt reduction does not lead to important efficiency gains on this account. Instead, we develop a framework that highlights the inefficiency created by the liquidity constraint faced by...

The manner in which the political system responds to external economic shocks in developing countries is a key determinant of the private investment response. We look at a simple model of political-economic equilibrium to make this intuition more precise. and develop the idea of a "political...

We develop a simple formal framework to clarify the trade-offs involved in the choice between a fixed and flexible exchange-rate system. We then apply the framework to the CFA Zone countries in Africa, which have maintained a fixed parity with the French Franc since independence. Thanks to the...

This paper studies the relationship between political conflict and economic growth in a simple model of endogenous growth with distributive conflicts. We study both the case of two "classes" (workers and capitalists) and the case of a continuum distribution of agents, characterized by different...

Uniform tariffs have become increasingly popular in recent years, yet their economic rationale is not strong. We identify and evaluate three sets of reasons as to why governments may prefer tariff uniformity as a means of alleviating political motives for excessive protection. First, a...

Despite the well-known gains from trade, trade liberalization is politically one of the most contentious actions that a government can take. We propose and formalize a new argument, having to do with uncertainty, which is complementary to the usual explanations for why that is the case; many...

How likely is trade liberalization to produce efficiency gains in the presence of imperfect competition, scale economies, and higher-than-average wages in the modern sectors -- all common features of developing economies? These features create a potential conflict to the extent that traditional...

We consider the differential incentives of the North and the South to provide patent protection to innovating firms in the North. The two regions are assumed to have a different distribution of preferences over the range of exploitable technologies. Due to the scarcity of R&D resources, the two...

This paper models the international competition between a domestic firm and its vertically integrated foreign rival. The domestic firm has the choice of developing its own production capability for an intermediate input, or of importing it from the foreign firm at a price set by the latter. In...

We develop a conceptual framework to highlight the role of ideas as a catalyst for policy and institutional change. We make an explicit distinction between ideas and vested interests and show how they feed into each other. In doing so the paper integrates the Keynes-Hayek perspective on the...