By using a model of trade union behaviour Grüner (2010) argues that the introduction of the European Monetary Union (EMU) led to lower wage growth and lower unemployment in participating countries. Following Grüner’s model, monetary centralization lets the central bank react less flexibly to...

This paper studies the interactions between the structure of product demand, relative wages, and the allocation of economic activity across two sectors. The agrarian sector produces a homogeneous good and consists of informal firms employing adults and children. The modern sector produces a...

In this paper we estimate disaggregated labour demand equations using panel data involving observations across time (1970-2007) for twenty-three industries across eleven euro area countries. By using the EU KLEMS database, which provides data across countries, we provide industry-by-industry...

We examine the relationship between capitalism and income inequality for a large sample of countries using an adjusted economic freedom index as proxy for capitalism and Gini coefficients based on gross-income as proxy for income inequality. Our results suggest that there is no robust...

We examine the effects that a country’s net capital flows have on the (border) prices that a country pays for its imports of goods. Using data from 2000 to 2009 for 11 euro area countries we utilize a pricing-to-market specification to study exporters’ pricing behavior to the rest of the...

From a theoretical perspective, the output gap is probably the most comprehensive and convincing concept to describe the cyclical position of an economy. Unfortunately, for practical purposes, the concept depends on the determination of potential output, which is an inherently unobservable...

We use real]time annual data on the fiscal balance, government current spending, current revenues and net capital outlays as published at a half yearly frequency in the OECD Economic Outlook for 25 OECD countries. For each fiscal year t we have a number of forecasts, a first release, and...

This paper analyzes long run outcomes resulting from adopting a binding minimum wage in a neoclassical model with perfectly competitive labour markets and capital accumulation. The model distinguishes between workers of heterogeneous ability and capitalists who do all the saving, and it entails...

Bailouts sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are famous for their conditionality: in return for continued installments of desperately needed loans, governments must comply with austere policy changes. Many have suggested, however, that politically important countries face rather...

Using an intertemporal model of saving and capital accumulation we demonstrate that it is impossible for any binding minimum wage to increase the after-tax incomes of workers if the production function is Cobb-Douglas with constant returns to scale, or if there are no differences in ability...