The current financial and economic crisis has again raised fears in emerging market economies of capital flight or a sudden stop of capital inflows. Especially the latter is intensively discussed in South Africa. We try to evaluate the danger by focusing on the sustainability of current account...

Savings are an import prerequisite of investment and long term growth in a country and the ability of a country to enter a 'beneficial debt cycle'. The paper analyzes how savings respond to the institutional quality in developing and transition economies. For a panel of about 60 countries over a...

Die Finanzkrise übt einen heftigen Einfluss auf den weltweiten Handel aus. Entwicklungs-, Schwellen- und Industrieländer sind verschieden stark von ihren Folgen betroffen. Die Aussichten für Weltwirtschaft und Welthandel sind noch immer ungewiss. Es besteht zudem die Gefahr eines neuen...

China's exchange-rate policy has been under attack in the last years, especially in the United States. Now the critique of Beijing's policy is coming from Europe as well, and Chinese authorities are accused of boosting its own export, at others expense, by keeping its currency below its real...

This paper discusses the political economy of climate protection. The objective is to come to a better understanding of why climate change has become one of the main topics at the domestic agenda in some countries, despite the fact that climate change can theoretically be considered as a topic...

The issue of internal security has become increasingly complex over the past decades. As there is an increasing overlap between private and public provision of security, the question of how to allocate responsibility for security between the public sphere (state) and the private sphere has...