We analyze the performance of the Maastricht convergence criteria (inflation, long-term interest rate, annual and overall public debt to GDP) of the European Monetary Union (EMU) that led to the introduction of the Euro on Jan. 1st 1999 as book currency. For our analysis we define 3 regimes: a)...

A critical discussion of a comparative growth analysis about Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries is performed. The main conclusion is that there was economic convergence for most CEE accession candidates, but not between them and Western Europe. Results do justify a separation into...

After the so-called Asia crisis in the summer of 1997 the stock markets were shaken by an increased volatility transmission phenomenon around the world. In this paper we will therefore analyse the daily stock returns in New York, Germany and Japan for a period of 2 years (June 21st, 1996 to June...

In this article a VAR-GARCH-M model for aggregate employment and employment shares is developed in order to explore the macroeconomic effects of sectoral shocks. Using US, UK and German quarterly data sets, the model is estimated and tested against alternative specifications. Three main issues...

Abstract We use a spatial econometric extension of the traditional regression-based gravity model to model commodity flows, focusing on a formal methodology for incorporating information regarding the highway network into the spatial connectivity structure of the spatial autoregressive...