Financial innovations are a common explanation for the rise in credit card debt and bankruptcies. To evaluate this story, the authors develop a simple model that incorporates two key frictions: asymmetric information about borrowers’ risk of default and a fixed cost of developing each contract lenders offer.

Belarus experienced rapid economic growth in the 2000's, which abruptly came to halt after 2008. The authors found that the major source of growth was capital accumulation, while growth in total factor productivity (TFP) was modest. Moreover, government interventions and controls on the capital market contributed to misallocation which lowered aggregate productivity. Lack of productivity growth led to the loss of competitiveness on the international markets. Comparisons of TFP in Belarus with the Czech Republic and Sweden shows that comparative advantages of Belarus are concentrated in the natural-resource based industries, and TFP gap with the Czech Republic is not closing over time.

The authors propose a parsimonious model with adverse selection where delinquency, renegotiation, and bankruptcy all occur in equilibrium as a result of a simple screening mechanism.

This study analyzes the effects of directed lending upon total factor productivity and GDP growth in Belarus over the period of 2000–2012.

This paper address the issue of assessing inflation persistence in Belarus using quarterly seasonally adjusted data over 1996–2011.

The paper investigates that question using 2006-2010 Belarusian Household Survey on Incomes and Expenditures and is based on the multinomial logit choice model.