By putting together a relatively large data set on bilateral remittances of emigrants, this paper is able to shed light on the important hypothesis of smoothing. The smoothing hypothesis is that remittances are countercyclical with respect to income in the worker’s country of origin (the...

Two decades ago, many people had drawn a lesson from the 1980s: Japan's variant of capitalism was the best model. Other countries around the world should and would follow it. Japan's admired institutions included relationship banking, keiretsu, bonus compensation for workers, lifetime...

Examining the correlation between trade and income cannot identify the direction of causation between the two. Countries' geographic characteristics, however, have important effects on trade and are plausibly uncorrelated with other determinants of income. This paper, therefore, constructs...

Intro -- Abstracts -- Introduction -- 1 The Source of Historical Economic Fluctuations: An Analysis using Long-Run Restrictions -- Comment Harald Uhlig, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Tilburg University, Bundesbank, and CEPR -- 2 Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Liquidity Trap --...