Search Results
Working Paper
Terrorism, Trade and Welfare: Some Paradoxes and a Policy Conundrum
We present a standard trade model and show that terrorism can be trade inducing, starting from autarky. In addition, terrorism can be shown to be welfare augmenting for a group of nations. Finally, we present some qualitative conditions that identify when a nation?s trade volume may rise (or fall) in response to a greater incidence of terrorism. Our trade and welfare results point to potential difficulties in international coordination of counterterrorism policy because of terrorism?s differential impact across nations.
Working Paper
On the Economic Mechanics of Warfare
A large literature is concerned with war finance, but there is little by way of understanding how war-related expenditures affect the economically-relevant outcomes of wars, e.g., prevailing side, duration, or destruction and casualties. I present a model of attrition in which I characterize the effects of resources on the outcomes of war for a military conclusion (when one side cannot fight anymore) and a political conclusion (when one side does not want to fight anymore). I discuss the role of GDP for both types of conclusion. I also analyze the mechanics of third-party support to a small ...
Working Paper
Measuring Geopolitical Risk
We present a monthly indicator of geopolitical risk based on a tally of newspaper articles covering geopolitical tensions, and examine its evolution and effects since 1985. The geopolitical risk (GPR) index spikes around the Gulf War, after 9/11, during the 2003 Iraq invasion, during the 2014 Russia-Ukraine crisis, and after the Paris terrorist attacks. High geopolitical risk leads to a decline in real activity, lower stock returns, and movements in capital flows away from emerging economies and towards advanced economies. When we decompose the index into threats and acts components, the ...
Working Paper
Fiscal multipliers in advanced and developing countries: evidence from military spending
Using novel data on military spending for 129 countries in the period 1988?2013, this paper provides new evidence on the effects of government spending on output in advanced and developing countries. Identifying government-spending shocks with an exogenous variation in military spending, we estimate one-year fiscal multipliers in the range 0.75-0.85. The cumulative multipliers remain significantly different from zero within three years after the shock. We find substantial heterogeneity in the multipliers across groups of countries. We then explore three potential sources leading to ...
Working Paper
Un-Fortunate Sons: Effects of the Vietnam Draft Lottery on the Next Generation's Labor Market
Can shocks to one generation propagate to the next? To answer this question, we study how the Vietnam draft lottery affected the next generation's labor market. Using the universe of federal tax returns, we link fathers from draft cohorts to their sons' outcomes and find that sons of fathers randomly called by the draft 1) have lower earnings and labor force participation than their peers, and 2) are more likely to volunteer for military service. These findings highlight the strong role family plays in human capital development and occupational choice. More generally, our results provide ...
Working Paper
Fiscal Stimulus and Consumer Debt
In the aftermath of consumer debt-induced recession, policymakers have questioned whether fiscal stimulus is effective during the periods of high consumer indebtedness. This study empirically investigates this question. Using detailed data on Department of Defense spending for the 2006-2009 period, we document that the open-economy relative fiscal multiplier is higher in geographies with higher consumer indebtedness. The results suggest that fiscal policy can mitigate the adverse effect of consumer (over)leverage on real economic output during a recession. We then exploit detailed microdata ...
Working Paper
Output response to government spending: evidence from new international military spending data
Fiscal policy, among other measures, was widely used to stimulate employment and to put the U.S. economy back on track in response to the Great Recession and in a number of previous recessions in both the United States and in Europe. It is striking how much disagreement there was ? and still is ? among policymakers and academics alike about the inner workings of fiscal policy and its effect on output and employment. Estimating fiscal multipliers is methodologically challenging, as government spending often reacts to current or anticipated changes in economic conditions, and requires bold ...
Working Paper
The economic effects of a potential armed conflict over Taiwan
This article examines the likely economic effects of a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan for the U.S. and the world by considering historical precedents. Such a conflict would likely produce a flight-to-safety in the asset market, huge disruptions in international trade, banking problems, and would greatly exacerbate existing fiscal pressures. The authorities of the People’s Republic of China would probably try to sell U.S. and other western securities prior to a conflict to avoid sanctions on those assets. Such sales would be temporarily disruptive but would likely have only marginal ...
Journal Article
Financial Market Reactions to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
This article analyzes financial market reactions to the Russia-Ukraine war with a focus on the opening weeks. Markets did not completely anticipate the war, and asset price reactions strengthened from the first week—when there were hopes for a quick resolution—to the second week, when prices generally peaked and began to partially revert to prewar values. Exposure to commodity trade and trade with Russia and Ukraine determined market perceptions of the riskiness of equity and foreign exchange assets. Credit default swap prices on sovereign debt and breakeven inflation rates indicate that ...
Working Paper
Financial market reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
This article analyzes financial market reactions to the Russia-Ukraine war with a focus on the opening weeks. Markets did not completely anticipate the war and asset price reactions strengthened from the first week—when there were hopes for a quick resolution—to the second week, when prices generally peaked and began to partially revert to pre-war values. Exposure to commodity trade and trade with Russia-Ukraine determined market perceptions of the riskiness of equity and foreign exchange assets. Credit default swap prices on sovereign debt and breakeven inflation rates indicate that ...