This paper considers the nature and the distribution of trade and FDI effects of a potential enlargement of the European Monetary Union (EMU) to the ten countries that obtained EU membership in 2004. One-way and two-way error component gravity models are estimated using a dataset of unbalanced...

This paper proposes an equilibrium relationship between expected exchange rate changes and differentials in expected returns on risky assets. We show that when expected returns on a risky asset in a certain economy are higher than the returns that are expected from investing in a risky asset in...

This paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium monetary portfolio choice model that accomplishes two objectives. First, it provides a theory of currency risk premia based on a weak and plausible form of fiscal nonneutrality. Domestic and foreign bonds become imperfect substitutes,...

The standard literature on working time has modelled the decisions of firms in a deterministic framework in which firms can choose between employment and overtime (given mandated standard hours). Contrary to this approach, we follow the real options approach, which allows us to investigate the...

This paper considers what we argue was the first experiment of an exchange rate band. This experiment took place in Austria-Hungary between 1896 and 1914. The rationale for introducing this policy rested on precisely those intuitions that modern target zone literature has recently emphasized:...

50-60 percent of international trade involves bilateral “trade credit” extended by the exporter to the importer or vice versa, and 60-70 percent of it is denominated and settled in currencies that are foreign to either of them. FX-denominated trade, in turn, exposes these firms to exchange...

We examine the pricing performance of out-of-sample pricing factors in the broad cross-section of currency returns. To this end, we develop a methodology for estimating empirical minimum-dispersion stochastic discount factors (SDFs) under constraints on maximum position leverage. Under leverage...

How does global risk impact the world economy? In taking up this question, we focus on the dollar’s role in the international adjustment mechanism. First, we rely on high-frequency surprises in the price of gold to identify the effects of global risk shocks in a Bayesian Proxy VAR model. They...

This paper investigates the relation between monetary conditions and the excess returns arising from currency carry trades. The results indicate that carry trade average return, Sharpe ratio and downside risk differ substantially across monetary conditions before the onset of the financial...