Relative to consumer services, consumer goods tend to be cheaper in richer European countries. This tendency, customarily explained in terms of cost developments and/or foreign-trade considerations, can be a reflection of a demand-side regularity. An econometrically specified cross-country...

The Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis – i.e. that real exchange rates between each pair of countries increase with the tradables sector productivities ratio between these countries, and decrease with their non-tradables sector productivities ratio – has been one of the most prominent frameworks...

The assumption that national labor markets are homogenous across tradable and non-tradable goods is common in multisector (open-economy) macro models and crucial for the prominent Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis. This study tests it with a novel method to distinguish the tradable and non-tradable...

In the post-war period, the goods composition of trade in OECD countries has changed considerably. We analyze the evolution of comparative advantage using a detailed trade data set and a new analytical tool: the harmonic (weighted) mass index, which enables us to identify periods of structural...

Frictionless, perfectly competitive traded-goods markets justify thinking of purchasing power parity (PPP) as the main driver of exchange rates in the long-run. But differences in the traded/non-traded sectors of economies tend to be persistent and affect movements in local price levels in ways...

In the post-war period, the goods composition of trade in OECD countries has changed considerably. We analyze the evolution of comparative advantage using a detailed trade data set and a new analytical tool: the harmonic (weighted) mass index, which enables us to identify periods of structural...

The assumption that national labor markets are homogenous across tradable and non-tradable goods is common in multisector (open-economy) macro models and crucial for the prominent Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis. This study tests it with a novel method to distinguish the tradable and non-tradable...