Multinationals and Structural Transformation
We study the role of multinationals (MNCs) in facilitating firm-level and aggregate structural transformation. Using a stylized model of multinational...
Low Rates and Bank Loan Supply: Theory and Evidence from Japan
In this paper, we explore the consequences of low nominal interest rates for credit supply, macroeconomic outcomes and policy. Using the protracted...
The Gap between Law and Practice in Pakistan’s Gender Reform
In the three-quarters of a century since Pakistan’s independence, parliament has adopted various laws in a bid to improve women’s legal rights. Many...
The Supply and Demand for Data Privacy: Evidence from Mobile Apps
This paper investigates how consumers and investors react to the standardized disclosure of data privacy practices. Since December 2020, Apple has...
Gender Promotion Gaps: Career Aspirations and Workplace Discrimination
Using a representative survey of U.S. lawyers, we document a sizeable gender gap in early partnership aspirations, which explains half of the later...
Firms’ Transition to Green: Innovation versus Lobbying
Competitive challenges and regulatory uncertainty associated with the green transition should incentivize firms to innovate and to sway regulatory...
Timing Complex News to Target Attention
Investors have limited and time-varying attention. These constraints are heterogeneous across investors, which can create asymmetric information and...
The Halting Gender Reforms in Burundi
In the sixty years since its independence Burundi has taken some steps to improve the legal standing of women in the economy and society. These steps...
Gender Legal Reform in Zimbabwe: Wanting
Zimbabwe has introduced some legal reforms towards women’s rights in the first three dozen years since its independence in 1980, though these changes...
Gender Legal Reforms in Zambia: Motivated by International Conventions
In 2023, Zambia ranked 17th among African countries on the World Bank’s Women Business and the Law index, a notable decline over a half century. The...
Does Board Size Matter?
This paper uses legal board size requirements to test whether board size affects firm performance and value. Since 1976, the minimum size of German...
Gender Reform in Rwanda: Change Spurred by Tragedy
Rwanda is among Africa’s leaders in providing equal opportunity between women and men in the economy. Progress in achieving this substantial progress...
Ideas, Idea Processing, and TFP Growth in the US: 1899 to 2019
Innovativity – an economy's ability to produce the innovations that drive total factor productivity (TFP) growth – requires both ideas and the ability...
Some Evidence of Regulatory Convergence
We find some evidence of regulatory convergence in four distinct areas of business activity over the 2005-2019 period. This convergence is most...
Technology as Deregulation
We present suggestive evidence that new technology has reduced business regulation globally over the 2005-2019 period, in the areas of paying...
Cleansing by Tight Credit: Rational Cycles and Endogenous Lending Standards
Endogenous cycles are generated by the two-way interaction between lenders’ behavior in the credit market and production fundamentals. When lenders...
