We investigate the monetary transmission mechanism in South Africa, a small open country, in terms of both the “timing and the effect” of monetary policy. We use a modelling approach that has not been utilised yet to do this. The trade shares of South Africa’s trading partners changed...

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This paper quantifies the effects of introducing a single open-ended contract for new hires, with increasing severance payments as an alternative to the current situation in Spain, where both temporary and permanent contracts are available. One of the reasons for the excessive job destruction in...

The EU Climate and Energy Package has recently became a hot topic in Poland due to the fact that the first important emission reductions will be introduced in 2013. Moreover, Polish economy is relatively CO2 intensive, as most of the electricity and heat generation is based on coal and some of...

We investigate volatility models and their forecasting abilities for three types of petroleum futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (West Texas Intermediate crude oil, heating oil #2, and unleaded gasoline) and suggest some stylized facts about the volatility of these...

The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed investigation of trade barriers by examining a cross-country, cross-industry analysis of evolution of trade costs for a 44-year period (1963-2006) positing the possible reasons behind the changes. I estimate trade costs using methodology of Shikher...

We investigate the changes in women's employment patterns across EU countries over the last 20 years both in terms of labour market participation and type of jobs using individual data from ECHP and EUSILC databases. By means of a logistic multilevel model, we then pin down the role played by...

The emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) grouping and the rapid advancement of their stock market may results in the acceleration of the appreciation of their respective currencies and ultimately the loss of their trade competitiveness. Conversely, exchange rate...

Success, which is mostly seen as an internal talent within a child, is indeed also influenced by many external factors including the behaviour of their parents during their childhood. Though father is an important figure, the role of the mother in child’s development is indisputable. Perhaps,...

The establishment of the currently negotiated Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the EU and Ukraine is the next significant step towards Ukraine’s deeper integration into the world economy, widely expected to result in additional welfare gains. Theory suggests that trade liberalization is...