The most important capital choice decision in a pre-mechanized agricultural economy was that of which type of draught animal to use. This paper provides an economic explanation for the varied use of draught animals in early twentieth century South Africa. It is argued that the abuse-resistant...

Under the current system of managed float exchange rates, large countries are able to absorb changes in their balance-of-payments by either manipulating international reserves to sterilize capital flows or by accepting changes in their exchange rates. In this system, the monetary authorities of...

A cross-sectional analysis was performed on the NBER Manufacturing Productivity database (450 four-digit industries) to investigate the behaviour of total factor productivity growth rates (PROD) and price-marginal cost ratios (PMC) in US manufacturing industries. This analysis allows for...

The study uses GARCH-M methodology to examine the effect of exchange rate shocks on the volatility of excess returns for the nineteen sectors of the Australian stock market. The data covers the period December 1979 through April 1994. The evidence suggests that news on exchange rates can improve...

Using a harmonized data set for the European Union and panel data techniques, and following a production function approach, we find a positive growth effect of total social protection expenditure on growth. When evaluating the effects of different programmes, the results are mixed.

Inequality follows different patterns along a high-income sector enlargement growth. Even under Kuznets' basic assumptions inequality may show a convex shape at the end of the process. Moreover, when some of the basic assumptions are removed, the inequality path may be convex along the whole...

It is demonstrated that for existing firms quits are important in the destruction of jobs. Although layoffs are relatively more used than quits, it is found that in absolute terms a substantial part of the destruction is accomplished through quits.

A model due to Lucas is estimated between the real stock market returns and real dividends on the market index. The sample spans the period from 1872 to 1987 on an annual basis. The results are close to theoretical expectations: the coefficient of relative risk aversion, which minimizes the sum...

The paper discusses the measurement of fiscal policy effects in the OECD/EU countries. The analysis is based on a simple VAR model for output growth, inflation and a fiscal indicator. Empirical analyses with data from 21 OECD countries for 1960-1996 show that fiscal policy effects differ...

In this paper we investigate the nature of the relationship between stock prices and spot exchange rates using recent developments in time series modelling. We are able to explain why traditional econometric techniques show little correlation between bilateral exchange rates and stock prices....