We examine whether the Chinese exchange rate is misaligned and how Chinese trade flows respond to the exchange rate and to economic activity. We find, first, that the Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), is substantially below the value predicted by estimates based upon a cross-country sample,...

Theory suggests that corporate and sovereign bonds are fundamentally different, also because sovereign debt has no bankruptcy mechanism and is hard to enforce. We show empirically that the two assets are more similar than you think, at least when it comes to high-yield bonds over the past 20...

The macroeconomic effects on growth, investment and private sector employment of different ways of rolling back the welfare state are analysed. Cutting public spending on private goods induces a lower interest rate, a higher wage, a lower capital stock and a fall in employment. Cutting public...

In 1998 Rüdiger Dornbusch gave the Munich Lectures in Economics entitled International Financial Crises . The CES Academic Council awarded him the prize and title Distinguished CES Fellow for his outstanding work on the monetary theory of foreign trade.Rüdiger Dornbusch passed away on July 25,...

The 1997 Asian financial crisis has revealed the limitations of the current state of monetary and financial monitoring system in most Asian countries in comprehensively addressing financial and monetary problems and issues. This paper attempts to propose a macro-prudential indicators (MPI)...

We analyze the implications of labor market reforms for an open economy's human capital investment and future production. A stylized model shows that labor market deregulation can imply more positive current account balances if financial markets are imperfect and labor market institutions not...

The paper studies the determinants of income distribution and growth in an overlapping generations economy with heterogenous households. Our framework has the following main features: (1) heterogeneity of consumers with respect to wealth and parental human capital; (2) intergenerational...

This paper analyses an open economy Ramsey model with an endogenous labour supply without capital. The technology defines an optimal firm size. Changes to the number of firms is subject to adjustment costs, so that the entry dynamics is determined endogenously. We find that there is a short run...

This paper shows that countries with weak banking system and fiscal institutions, should benefit from the presence of foreign banks, which can constitute a commitment and transparency device. Foreign banks can also reduce the probability of self-fulfilling speculative attacks. A strong presence...