This paper studies the political economy of realignments to fixed exchange rates and suggests that the use of realignments is less likely when there are political benefits from stable exchange rates and when linkages across other issue areas increase the costs of realignment. More specifically...

Independent central banks prefer balanced budgets due to the long-run connection between deficits and inflation and can enforce their preference through interest rate increases and denial of credit to the government. We argue that legal central bank independence (CBI) deters fiscal deficits...

Research on central bank independence (CBI) focuses overwhelmingly on domestic causes and consequences. We consider CBI in relation to global finance. A first step links government decisions to reform central bank legislation to a perceived need to attract capital in the form of foreign direct...

Though central banks make consequential macroeconomic decisions, little is known about diversity at the helm of these institutions. This article investigates what factors drive the gender balance in central bank boards. I document the lack diversity of central bank leadership and argue that it...

Do voters punish left-wing parties that pursue neo-liberal policies? We address the question in the context of post-communist countries, where the left implemented painful market-oriented reforms. For the left, owning these reforms means backing away from its policy platform and plausibly...

Does globalization just create welfare gains, or is it accompanied by lower accountability, reduced welfare provision, labor standards or human rights? We argue that the broad and legally enforceable protection offered to foreign investors by bilateral investment treaties (BITs) worsens the...

Haiti's economic development has been held back by a history of civil conflict and violence. With donor assistance declining from its exceptional levels following the 2010 earthquake, and concessional financing growing scarce, Haiti must learn to live with tighter budget constraints. At the same...

This paper explores the conditions under which public spending could minimize violent conflict related to oil wealth. Previous work suggests that oil can lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of the state as a prize or because it undermines the state's bureaucratic penetration....

This paper argues that state weakness is broader than implied previously in the civil war literature, and that particular types of weakness in interaction with natural resources have aggravating or mitigating consequences for the risk of civil war. While in anocracies or unstable regimes natural...

Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) allow developing countries to trade some policy autonomy for improved access to internationally mobile capital. While the impact on capital flows is widely written about, BITs' impact on policymaking is typically studied more narrowly in the context of...