As shown in Sinn and Wollmershäuser (2012a), during the European balance-of-payments crisis, inter-governmental credit and Target credit granted by core-country central banks have replaced private international capital flows in financing the crisis countries' current account deficits, and even...

Evaluation of the financial costs of a Eurozone breakup depends critically on the interpretation of TARGET balances. While it has been argued that TARGET claims in the Eurozone can be written off without incurring any losses on the claimants as the value of fiat money is independent of the...

The European Monetary Union is stuck in a severe balance of payments crisis. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain in particular have suffered from balance of payment deficits whose accumulated value, as measured by the Target balances in the national central banks’ balance sheets, was 314...

While the financial protection measures enacted by the ECB and the community of Eurozone members have calmed financial markets, they have left the competitiveness problem of the Eurozone’s southern countries and France unresolved. The paper compares price inflation before the crisis with the...

We build a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model with one-sided substitutability between fossil carbon and biocarbon. One shock only, the discovery of the technology to use fossil fuels, leads to a transition from an initial pre-industrial phase to three following phases: a pure fossil...

The paper offers a proof that expected utility maximisation with logarithmic utility is a dominant preference in the biological selection process in the sense that a population following any other preference for decision-making under risk will, with a probability that approaches certainty,...

Based on explicit present value calculations, the paper criticizes the view that the PAYGO system wastes economic resources. In present value terms, there is nothi ng to be gained from a transition to a funded system even though the latter offers a permanently higher rate of return. The sum of...

The forces of the market and systems competition bring about economic and social convergence in Europe. There is no need for social policies at the EU level. Social harmonisation would distort migration flows and slow down the speed of economic convergence. National welfare states will be...

Open borders imply systems competition. This paper studies the implications of systems competition for the national co mpetition rules. It is shown that an equilibrium where all countries retain their antitrust laws does not exist, since abolishing this law makes it possible for a single country...

Business representatives and union leaders in highly industrialised countries often accuse the governments of less-developed countries of practising social dumping in the sense of deliberately neglecting work-place safety legislation, co-determination rights and other fringe benefits which...