Erasmus K. Kersting

Villanova University | Nova · Department of Economics

This paper uses Freedom House ratings to assess the impact of foreign aid on democracy. We employ an interval regression to account for Freedom House's method of rating countries. A cross-sectional analysis examining the long run effect of aid on democracy in 122 countries between 1972 and 2011 finds a significant positive relationship that survive...

This paper reviews the evidence on the relationship between openness and inflation. There is a robust negative relationship across countries, first documented by Romer (1993), between a country's openness to trade and its long-run inflation rate. However, a key part of the standard explanation for this relationship—that central banks have a smaller...

How do firm-specific actions-in particular, innovation-affect firm productivity? And what is the role of the financial sector in facilitating higher productivity? Using a rich firm-level dataset, we find that innovation is crucial for firm performance as it directly and measurably increases productivity. Moreover, its effects on productivity are me...

This paper investigates how World Bank lending responds to upcoming elections in borrowing countries. We find that investment project loans disburse faster when countries are aligned with the United States in the UN. Moreover, disbursement accelerates in the run-up to competitive executive elections if the government is geopolitically aligned with...

Does the US administration exercise more informal influence over the World Bank when it has less control over US bilateral aid because of opposition from Congress? Replicating four studies of the World Bank, we show that years with a divided US government account for earlier findings of informal influence. This link between donor domestic politics...

Do U.S. presidential administrations exert more informal influence over international financial institutions when they face an uncooperative Congress and thus have less control over bilateral aid? Reexamining four empirical studies of the World Bank, we demonstrate that U.S. informal influence is driven by years with divided U.S. government. This p...

World Bank projects sometimes receive supplemental loans months or years after initial project approval. Largely unnoticed, supplemental lending has mushroomed in the last decade, accounting for nearly 30% of all new loans in some years. These loans can serve important functions, as they come without the bureaucratic delays associated with new proj...

The attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered to be of particular importance for emerging economies because it represents a channel through which international convergence in standards of living may be achieved. One important effect of FDI is its impact on wages, both within the targeted firm (direct) and the local firms within th...

This paper studies access to finance by suppliers that are linked to a multinational enterprise. The theoretical framework consists of a property rights model featuring suppliers that are either vertically integrated or sell to the multinational at arm's length, which in turn affects the availability of different sources of credit. Integrated suppl...

We use a standard dynamic general equilibrium model with flexible prices, money in the utility function, exogenous fiscal policy and accommodating monetary policy to analytically demonstrate the positive relationship between the steady state level of inflation and business cycle inflation volatility. This result holds in the presence of unique as w...

Do U.S. presidential administrations exert more informal influence over international financial institutions when they face an uncooperative Congress and thus have less control over bilateral aid? Reexamining four empirical studies of the World Bank, we demonstrate that U.S. informal influence is driven by years with divided U.S. government. This p...

We use a standard dynamic general equilibrium model with flexible prices, money in the utility function, exogenous fiscal policy and accommodating monetary policy to analytically demonstrate the positive relationship between the steady state level of inflation and business cycle inflation volatility. This result holds in the presence of unique as w...

This paper examines endogenous excess reserve holdings in the banking sector of an otherwise standard DSGE environment. Excess reserves act as an extensive margin of bank lending that is inactive in traditional limited participation models where banks hold minimal reserves by assumption. The results suggest that this extensive margin of bank lendin...

This paper presents a North-South model with differentiated goods being produced in the North. Each differentiated final good requires both management and manufacturing services as inputs, and firms are heterogeneous with regard to their productivity levels in providing these inputs. Moving manufacturing to the South lowers part of a firm's variabl...

My dissertation studies various questions falling into the broad context of macroeconomics and international economics. The questions have macroeconomic components because they are concerned with the behavior of aggregates. Specifically, the second and third chapters of my dissertation study the causes of fluctuations in aggregate macroeconomic var...

This paper quantitatively investigates equilibrium indeterminacy due to economies of scale (ES) in financial intermediation. Financial intermediation provides deposits (inside money) which can substitute with currency to purchase consumption, and depositing decisions are susceptible to non-fundamental confidence (sunspot) shocks. With the intermedi...

This paper examines the role of fiscal stabilization policy in a two-country framework that allows for a general degree of exchange rate pass-through. I derive analytical solutions for optimal monetary and fiscal policy which are shown to depend on the degree of pass-through. In the case of partial pass-through, an optimizing policy maker uses coun...

The financial crisis that began in August 2007 and intensified in the fall of 2008 pushed the global economy into a severe downturn that some have called the Great Recession. The decline in trade and the protectionist instincts that invariably come to the fore in difficult economic times have raised concerns that today's crisis may lead to deglobal...

This paper applies 'Business Cycle Accounting' methodology introduced by Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan (2002a) to the UK economy. In particular, I examine the cyclical episode from 1979 to 1989. The chosen method enables me to decompose fluctuations in aggregates to isolate the effects corresponding to different distortions in the underlying model. I...

This paper documents some key facts about foreign direct investment flows by U.S. businesses overseas and foreign businesses in the United States. We show how the pattern of flows has evolved, examine the sources and destination of these flows, document associated employment and productivity gains, and show how investment-related sales compare with...

This paper studies the e¤ects of introducing a nominal tax on wage income into a Neo-Keynesian model that allows for general degrees of exchange rate pass-through on prices of internationally traded goods. The added stabilization instrument is shown to play a role as long as there is some imperfection in the pass-through from the exchange rate to p...