We estimate the excess impact of financial asset capital losses relative to gains on household active savings and durable goods consumption in the Netherlands. The sample period covers both the stock market boom during the 90's, and the bear period afterwards. The results suggest that households...

Using data for 17 OECD countries from 1983 to 2003, this paper establishes a non-linear relationship between private consumption and the level of government debt. In countries with a high level of government debt, a fiscal expansion is partly crowded out by a fall in private consumption. In...

This paper investigates whether there has been a structural increase in financial market integration in nine European countries and the US in the period 1980-2003. We employ a GARCH model with a smoothly time-varying correlation to estimate the date of change and the speed of the transition...