Asset prices undergo long swings that revolve around benchmark levels. In currency markets, fluctuations involve real exchange rates that are highly persistent and that move in near-parallel fashion with nominal rates. The inability to explain these two regularities with one model has been...

The notions of instrument, intermediate target and final target are defined in the context of the cointegrated VAR. A target variable is said to be controllable if it can be made stationary around a desired target value by using the instrument. This can be expressed as a condition on the...

Two methodological approaches to empirical economics which are labelled 'theory first' versus 'reality first' are introduced building the background for the discussion of the individual contributions to this special issue. --

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the wage, price and unemployment dynamics that have taken place in Spain during the last two decades. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the impact of the European economic integration on Spanish labour market and the convergence to a...