This paper aims to model the cost behaviour of Chinese state-owned enterprises in the 1980s. Given production autonomy and profit-related bonus incentives, state firms are expected to increase profits and therefore bonuses by changing their cost behaviours more rationally. However, since...

This paper presents archival and econometric evidence that challenges the conventional belief that independent central banks are necessary to stabilise economies on non-inflationary growth paths. The evidence suggests that, when the US central bank—the Federal Reserve—became independent of...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which discrimination early in one's career can have lasting effects on job quality even after the discrimination itself disappears. The results show that for young workers in the 1980s, discrimination is a short run phenomenon, and...

This paper examines the convergence experience of selected Caribbean countries. It examines evidence of reduced dispersion in real per capita income—Sigma convergence—and 'catch up' growth across the group—Beta convergence. Estimation of the Solow—Swan cross-section model for the...

This paper examines whether the OECD countries are characterised by a high degree of stability of their export specialisation patterns at the country level or not. Furthermore, we test whether the countries have become more or less specialised. In this context we distinguish between...

One objection to delegating monetary policy to an independent central bank is that it causes lack of coordination with fiscal policy. Nordhaus has recently shown, in a simple game-theoretic model, how this generates too-contractionary monetary policy and too-expansionary fiscal policy, with...

Cointegration analysis of a productivity-modified purchasing power parity relation supports the hypothesis that—in the long run—the nominal exchange rate adjusts to accommodate different national rates of productivity growth in the traded goods sector. Accordingly, in the long run, an...