This survey discusses recent contributions to the quantitative literature on unsecured consumer debt and default, and some ongoing challenges for the literature.

How do member states determine the Common External Tariff@ (CET) in a Customs Union? While a large theoretical literature studies the incentives faced by governments when negotiating the CET, empirical evidence is so far scant. This paper studies a large panel data set of tariff data from the Eurasian Customs Union and demonstrates the importance of mutual protectionism: member states bargain to expand to their partners the protection of goods that were protected nationally.

In the recent decades aggregate labor productivity in the U.S. became countercyclical (labor productivity puzzle). At the same time the U.S. experienced dramatic changes in the structure of households due to increased female labor force participation.

This study estimates the equivalence scale for Belarus, while directly accounting for household size economies of scale. For this purposes, the modication of methodology in Lancaster and Ray (1998) was used. The poverty levels for vulnerable social groups are estimated using the house holds equivalized total expenditures. In addition, the comparison of Engel curves for several expenditure categories is conducted for different years.

What affects individual preference for different types of political regime? Is it something individual or are there factors from outside that form preferences? This paper investigates the determinants of individual preferences for democratic values and looks at differences in impact of influencing factors in transition and non-transition countries.

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.