Working Papers

This chapter discusses different approaches pursued to explore three broad questions related to technology diffusion: what general patterns characterize the diffusion of technologies, and how have they changed over time; what are the key drivers of technology, and what are the macroeconomic consequences of technology.

These are extraordinary times for central banks. Near zero interest rates and massive liquidity injections are still failing to bring life back to so many economies in the developed world.

In this paper we provide a summary and a guide to the literature for a new line of research which goes under the name of Economic Complexity and is partly performed incollaboration with INET.

“Look! Up there in the sky! What is it? Is it a plane? Is it a bird?” No, it’s a distraction from the robbery that is taking place in broad daylight on the ground.

Innovation. The word is evocative of ideas, products and processes which have somehow made the world a better place. Prior to the global financial crisis, many viewed financial innovation as unequivocally falling into this category.

The exteriors of major central banks may be solid marble and doric columns, but, inside, monetary policy remains a work in progress.

Only a few years ago, comparisons of American politics to opéra bouffe were not outrageously farfetched at least if you were not poor or sick.

Since the dawn of this millennium, and long before the current financial turmoil and the subsequent bitter pill of austerity therapy hit the Untied States and the European Union, the Chinese Communist Government has publicly recognized the monumental challenge of polarity.

There are a number of possible purposes in assessing the level of economic development of a country or part of a country. The assessment may provide an incentive for better development, particularly if it can be compared meaningfully with assessments for other countries.

“Taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the structural adjustments of the global economy…”The decisions on the four modernisations taken at the Third Plenum represented a radical change in Chinese domesticdevelopment strategy.

Political meritocracy is the idea that a political system is designed with the aim of selecting political leaders with above average ability to make morally informed political judgments. That is, political meritocracy has two key components: (1) the political leaders have above average ability and virtue and (2) the selection mechanism is designed to choose such leaders.

At the heart of economics is a theory of action. It reflects views about how human beings make economic decisions and leads to an analysis of aggregate consequences.

A core puzzle in Önancial economics is the inability of standard risk-premium models to account for excess returns in currency and other asset markets.

Neoclassical economics has abolished the role of psychology in decision making by assuming that all individuals are rational optimizers with rational expectations about future events.

The global financial crisis led to the rediscovery of ‘fundamental uncertainty’. Incorporating uncertainty into the analysis of financial markets alters our understanding of how these markets operate and expose the two-faced role of law in finance.