We argue that the European currency union (ECU) reduced the de facto monetary policy autonomy of EU countries abstaining from introducing the euro. The large share of imports from euro zone countries renders a close alignment of monetary policy to the interest rate set by the European Central...

Lexikon der Internationalen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen für Volkswirte, Politikwissenschaftler, Soziologen, Betriebswirte und Juristen sowie alle Interessierten. Es informiert knapp aber zugleich detailliert über Begriffe, Grundlagen und Institutionen in der zunehmend globalisierten Wirtschaft.

One of the perennial questions in the scientific study of war is how war affects the economy. The authors examine the influence that the political developments within three war regions had on global financial markets (CAC, Dow Jones, FTSE) from 1990 to 2000. They embed a rational expectation...

The recent surge in studies analysing spatial dependence in political science has gone hand-in-hand with increased attention paid to the choice of estimation technique. In comparison, specification choice has been relatively neglected, even though it leads to equally, if not more, serious...

Conflicts between European Union (EU) members about enlargement result from its redistributive effects. EU members are more likely to suffer from enlargement if they profit from EU transfers and if they are relatively close to applicant countries in which unemployment is significantly higher...

Most of the literature has treated EU enlargement and the transition of Central and Eastern Europe, two of the most memorable events in recent history, as separate events. We argue that such separation is not warranted; it obfuscates an important fact, namely that the reform process in many...

Americans are a major target of international terrorism. Yet, terrorists from some countries are much more likely to attack American citizens than terrorists from other countries. Similarly, anti-American terrorism from a specific foreign country is much more prevalent during certain periods...

Summary Governments can significantly reduce earthquake mortality by enforcing quake-proof construction regulation. We examine why many governments do not. First, mortality is lower in countries with higher earthquake propensity, where the payoffs to investments in mortality prevention are...

Spatial dependence exists whenever the expected utility of one unit of analysis is affected by the decisions or behavior made by other units of analysis. Spatial dependence is ubiquitous in social relations and interactions. Yet, there are surprisingly few social science studies accounting for...

Summary Famine mortality is preventable by government action and yet some famines kill. We develop a political theory of famine mortality based on the selectorate theory of Bueno de Mesquita et al. [Bueno de Mesquita, B. B., Morrow, J. M., Siverson, R. M., & Smith, A. (2002). Political...