``is Rivera-Batiz is Associate Professor of Economics and Education at Columbia University, and also teaches at McGill University and the University of Puerto Rico. He has served as consultant with the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank and has extensive consulting experience with private companies. His work has been published in numerous journals, including the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, European Economic Review, and the Journal of Development Economics. He is co-author, with Francisco-Rivera-Batiz, of International Finance and Open Economy Macroeconomics (Prentice-Hall) a standard international economics textbook. His research interests focus on international economics, economic growth and finance. Rivera-Batiz holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.Maria-Angels Oliva is Assistant Professor of Economics at ESCP-EAP, Paris (European School of Management). She has held positions as post-doctoral researcher at MIT Sloan School of Management, lecturer at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, visiting scholar at Columbia University and at the Université de Montreal, and has worked as a consultant for the International Monetary Fund.