Conventional estimates of the economic contribution of agriculture and the agri-food sector suggest that the overall sector still accounts for around 10% of total employment, GNP and exports, even after the structural changes brought about by the Celtic Tiger economy in the 1990s. These...

We employ smooth transition models to test the null hypothesis of a unit root in time series on U.S. and U.K. monthly inflation beginning in 1957. Under the alternative hypothesis the test allows for structural change from level-stationarity to difference stationarity. For both countries the...

This paper documents the size and timing of the world inter-continental trade boom following the great voyages in the 1490s of Columbus, da Gama and their followers. Indeed, a trade boom followed over the subsequent three centuries. But what was its cause? The conventional wisdom in the world...

This paper presents econometric evidence on whether the founding of the Federal Reserve in 1914 caused a structural change from level-stationarity to difference-stationarity in U.S. and U.K. short-term nominal interest rates. We develop new econometric tests that allow for parameter transitions...

International financial integration allows countries to become net creditors or net debtors with respect to the rest of the world. In this paper, we show that a small set of fundamentals-shifts in relative output levels, the stock of public debt and demographic factors-can do much to explain the...

In this paper, we study the determinants of cross-country variation in the level of international reserves over 1981-95. Confirming intuition, trade openness is easily the most important variable. There is also some evidence that financial deepening is associated with an increase in the reserves...

This paper analyses some key issues concerning the new National Pensions Reserve Fund. We briefly review the basic demographic and economic trends that motivate the establishment of the Fund. We consider the pitfalls facing the operation of the Fund and argue that a complete ban on domestic...

We study the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policies in an open economy. We emphasize two transmission mechanisms: the cost channel, by which wage government spending and labor taxes raise the real wage firms must pay, and the exchange rate channel, by which the nominal exchange rate shifts...

This paper examines recent changes in EU agricultural policy and its implementation in Ireland and asks whether the changes made encourage a more sustainable agriculture in Ireland in line with the objectives of the Rio UN Conference on the Environment and Development. It argues that the Agenda...