Every once in a great while, history provides us with a natural experiment, an episode in which a major change in a key economic variable occurs that has no direct relation to the contemporaneous behavior of the variables that theory suggests it ought to effect.A classic example was the currency...

This paper examines data for stock prices and price levels of 14 developed countries during the post-WWII era and compares their behavior in that sample with behavior over the past two centuries in the UK and the US. Contrary to much of the literature of the past several decades, we find that...

In this paper we examine the stability of the real exchange rate and the macroeconomic effects of alternative exchange rate regimes, including currency union, on real exchange rate behaviour. We focus on the Irish punt in order to exploit its diversity of experience over different nominal...

In this paper we study the behavior of the real exchange rate of three American currencies relative to the U.S. dollar: the Canadian dollar, the Mexican peso and the Panamanian balboa. Our principal objective in doing so is to investigate the effects of alternative exchange-rate regimes,...

In this paper we examine the stability of the real exchange rate and the macroeconomic effects of alternative exchange-rate regimes, including currency union, on real exchange-rate behaviour. We focus on the Irish punt in order to exploit its diversity of experience over different nominal...

Department: Economics.

The objective of this study is to examine whether and to what extent Australian banks use loan loss provisions (LLPs) for capital management, earnings management and signalling. We examine if there were changes in the use of LLPs due to the implementation of banking regulations consistent with...

The economics of international monies is likely to be informative about the future of the euro. The authors summarize the history of international monies, from the gold solidus introduced in the fourth century to the present. They identify four common characteristics of these currencies: high...

The authors review the history of international monies and the theory related to their adoption and use. There are four key characteristics of these currencies: high unitary value; relatively low inflation rates for long periods; issuance by major economic and trading powers; and spontaneous, as...

While the signalling hypothesis has played a prominent role as the economic rationale associated with the initial public offering (IPO) underpricing puzzle (Welch, 1989), the empirical evidence on it has been mixed at best (Jegadeesh, Weinstein and Welch, 1993; Michaely and Shaw, 1994). This paper...