It is rather evident that there is much more (statistical) information about objective aggregates, such as inflation, output or unemployment than that concerning subjective aggregates, such as well-being, satisfaction, confidence or even expectations. Due to its characteristics, fuzzy logic can...

The great majority of the theoretical analysis about electoral cycles has considered the national space as the territory of interest for the study of the economic consequences of an electoralist behaviour by the central government. This fact, in conjunction to the nature of the data most...

One of the most crucial lessons to be taken from the literature on electoral business cycles is that the short- run electorally-induced fluctuations prejudice the long-run welfare. Since the very first studies on the matter, some authors offered suggestions as to what should be done against this...

Notwithstanding the numerous applications of fuzzy logic in several fields of economics, it is surprising that, to the best of our knowledge, so very few applications have been made in modelling approximations of subjective economic variables, such as confidence, satisfaction or even...

This note presents some of the consequences due to the possibility of having early elections. First of all, elections, whether exogenously or endogenously determined, are relevant to challenge the well known neutrality principle of economic policies under rational expectations. Furthermore, in...

An electoral cycle created by governments is a phenomenon that seems to characterise, at least in some particular occasions and/or circumstances, the democratic economies. As it is generally accepted, the short-run electorally-induced fluctuations prejudice the long-run welfare. Since the very...

The decline in fertility that has been observed in Portugal is an apparent fact. From 1960 to 2002, the average number of children by woman has decreased from 3.1 to 1.5. Not ignoring this strong evidence of a sustainable decrease in fertility, the fact is that the numbers on the fertility rates...

Globalization and technological innovations create investment opportunities for firms worldwide. In fact, while firms pursue foreign direct investment (FDI) opportunities on a global basis, countries compete to attract these flows. Investment decisions by firms depend on complex and distinct...

This note shows in what circumstances output persistence may invert the pattern of the electoral cycle when inflation expectations are of the adaptive or rational type and the government preferences are quadratic over output and inflation.

The paper offers an analysis of the issues related to the election dates synchronisation between two countries. The first purpose of the paper is to analyse the circumstances in which a government of a single country, considered to be a small economy, has incentives, or not, to synchronise the...