It has been widely recognized that the poor spends a significant proportion of their income on social spending even at the expense of basic consumption. What are the motives behind the observed lavish social spending among the poor? We attempt to test three competing explanations at the social...

The paper investigates interrelations between the dynamics of national central banks' interest rates and international trade within the BRIC countries. It shows that countries with lower interest rates experience growth of the share of machinery industry exports rather than agriculture and food...