In one-good international macro models with non-diversifiable labor income risk country portfolios are heavily biased toward foreign assets. The fact that the opposite pattern of diversification is observed empirically constitutes the international diversification puzzle. This paper embeds a portfolio choice decision in a two-country, two-good version of the stochastic growth model. In this env...

Legal restrictions on international capital movements are imposed in many countries in an attempt to (partially) insulate their economies from abroad and pursue some degree of domestic policy independence. But is the imposition of capital controls effective in achieving these goals? We investigate this issue from a new angle by linking de jure restrictions on three specific asset categories of ...

The empirical relationship between capital controls and the financial development of credit and equity markets is examined. We extend the literature on this subject along a number of dimensions. Specifically, we (1) investigate a substantially broader set of proxy measures of financial development; (2) create and utilize a new index based on the IMF measures of exchange restrictions that incorp...

A generic feature of financial frictions, whatever their origins may be, is to distort the allocation of funds to projects, causing some less productive projects to be funded while more productive projects are not. I formalize this idea by introducing a log supermodularity condition which requires that, at the margin, the difference in productivity between funded and unfunded projects is smalle...

Since the nineties, stock markets have been experiencing significant technological, legal and other kind of changes affecting their organization and structure. This has led to strategic moves in mergers and alliances at a national as well as at an international scale. The aim of this paper is to better understand this phenomenon and analyze its impact on the future of stock markets considered a...

Already before the final introduction of the single European currency there have been negotiations on a further enlargement of the Eurozone to the East. The accession of 10 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) to Euroland is likely to be realised within the next 10 years and it is an important issue to assess whether these candidates are better or worse suitable for EMU membership than...

The vast increase in foreign assets globally has raised interest in how the home country should tax profits flowing from these investments. Broadly speaking, countries have chosen either to exempt foreign income from taxation or to subject foreign income to taxation with credits/deductions given for foreign taxes paid. Recent research has focused on the effect of these foreign income tax rules ...

We have generated a chromosomal mutant of moeB (moeBA228T) that demonstrates limited molybdenum cofactor (molybdo-bis(molybdopterin guanine dinucleotide) (Mo-bisMGD)) availability in Escherichia coli and have characterized its effect on the maturation and physiological function of two well-characterized respiratory molybdoenzymes: the membrane-bound dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) reductase (DmsABC) a...

There is a crisis in multilateralism.  No major new binding rules relating to international commerce have come into force in more than 20 years.  Demands by some nations for rules in new areas are not being met. The negotiations in the WTO of trade rules and the negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to devise rules restricting the annual emissions of greenhouse ga...