This paper studies the Balassa-Samuelson effect in 9 CEECs. Using panel cointegration techniques, we find strong empirical evidence in favour of what we call the internal transmission mechanism since productivity growth in the open sector is found to bring about non-tradable inflation. However,...

This paper sets out to estimate equilibrium real exchange rates for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. A theoretical model is developed that provides an explanation for the appreciation of the real exchange rate based on tradable prices in the acceding countries. Our...

We find that productivity gains in tradables cause an appreciation of the real exchange rate via both tradable and nontradable prices in the CEE-5 and have no affect in the Baltic countries, while they lead to a depreciation of the real exchange rate of tradables in OECD economies that...

This paper puts the original Reinhart-Rogoff dataset, made public by Herndon et al. (2013), to a formal econometric test to pin down debt threshold endogenously. We show that the nonlinear relation from debt to growth is not very robust. Taken with a pinch of salt, our results suggest, however,...

This paper analyses the reaction of fiscal policy to the cycle in OECD countries. The results suggest that while overall government balances were counter-cyclical in the past and more so in economic downturns than in upswings, discretionary fiscal policy was neutral on average. However,...

This study seeks to determine the extent to which countries of the former Soviet Union are infectedʺ by the Dutch Disease. We take a detailed look at the functioning of the transmission mechanism of the Dutch Disease, i.e. the chains that run from commodity prices to real output in...