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Misleading Indicators? The Argentinean Currency Crisis

Despite the fact that Argentina has been suffering from recession for years, the timing and severity of the recent currency crisis surprised most observers. There is an extensive literature on early warning systems, which claim to be apt for a systematical prediction of currency crises. One of the most prominent "early warning system" approaches was first developed by Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart ...

A Simple, Analytically Solvable, Chamberlinian Agglomeration Model

This paper presents a simple Chamberlinian agglomeration model which, like the canonical core-periphery (CP) model, contains two agglomerative forces. However, in contrast to that model, the present model is analytically solvable. Moreover, the present model exhibits a "supercritical pitchfork bifurcation" rather than the "subcritical pitchfork bifurcation" of the CP model. This may be a better description ...

Interactions between Climate and Trade Policies: A Survey

Norm-Based Trade Union Membership: Evidence for Germany

In the absence of closed shops and discriminatory wage policies, union membership can be explained by the existence of social norms. We describe a model, incorporating institutional features of the German labour market, which explicitly allows for social custom effects in the determination of union membership. Using panel data for Germany, we find evidence for according effects which restrict free-riding. ...

Landing on All Fours? Communist Elites in Post-Soviet Russia

This paper analyzes the economic situation of former Communist party members in post-Soviet Russia. On the basis of the Russian Socio-Economic Transition Panel, we are able to identify members of the Communist party prior to transition so that we can assess their relative economic performance between 1993 and 1999. We find a significant wage premium associated with former membership in the Soviet Communist ...

Wer erbt mehr? Erbschaften, Sozialstruktur und Alterssicherung

Welche Folgen haben Erbschaften für Sozialstruktur, Vermögensbildung und Alterssicherung? Wem kommen Erbschaften in besonderem Maße zugute? Die empirischen Analysen basieren auf Befragungsergebnissen des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels aus dem Jahre 2001. Sie liefern Informationen über Erblasser, Erbart, Erbzeit, Erbchance und Erbhöhe. Dabei werden die theoretischen Hypothesen generell bestätigt. Erbschaftsforschung ...

Advising Policymakers through the Media

In the information age, an exchange with the media is part of the duties the economics profession has to deliver to educate the public. A key issue is the education of policymakers through the media. It is the silver bullet of policy advice in comparison to commissioned research and face-to-face advice provided to the politician. It also pleases the vanity of the scientist: Few economists are willing ...

Assessing Leading Indicators for the EMU Area from a Practitioner's Perspective

In this paper, the empirical relevance of the credit channel for the explanation of monetary policy transmission in Germany during the period from 1985 to 1998 is analyzed. While existing studies of the credit channel rely mostly on the analysis of monetary policy effects on balance sheet items, both quantities and financing costs are considered here. Using vector autoregressive models, impulse response ...

Climate Coalitions and International Trade: Assessment of Cooperation Incentives by Issue Linkage

This paper investigates climate control coalition games. It studies whether incentives exist for non-cooperating nations like the USA to join a coalition based upon issue linkage. Issue linkage is considered through increased R&D expenditures triggering improved technological innovations that advance energy efficiencies. Model calculations demonstrate that incentives exist for non-cooperating countries ...

What Is behind the Real Appreciation of the Accession Countries' Currencies? An Investigation of the PPI Based Real Exchange Rate

In the paper, we calculate real equilibrium exchange rates (EER) for EU accession countries and compare these with the actual exchange rate movements since the mid-1990s. The real equilibrium exchange rates are derived from models of macroeconomic balance and tested for econometrically. It is found that productivity increases can be regarded as one source of the observed PPI-based real appreciation ...