Can a growing welfare state induce a regime switch in the growth rate of an economy? This paper constructs a dynamic political economy model of economic growth and the welfare state in which both variables are non-linearly related and jointly endogenous. Using a Markov switching framework over...

The paper applies an equilibrium correction model to discuss impacts of monetary, labour and external factors on the German inflation. The approach presented is of eclectic character and allows for examination which variables representative for various inflation theories matter empirically when...

The main objective of this study is to highlight the importance of political instability, defined as frequent changes in and of government, in undermining the Russian exchange rate based stabilization program of the 1990s. The empirical evidence supports the significance of political instability...

This paper uses Markov switching models to study short-run movements of the Polish zloty and speculative phenomena in Poland, that is, to investigate whether the exchange rate is "contaminated" by a speculative bubble. The zloty movements are examined in terms of so-called long swings - periods...

Economists are currently divided over the question of what represents a more immediate threat to the global economy - deflation or excessive infl ation. Using stochastic simulations, this article extrapolates the likely inflation rates in individual European countries and the euro area as a...

We present a model of optimal government policy when policy choices may exacerbate socio-political instability (SPI). We show that optimal policy that takes into account SPI transforms a standard concave growth model into a model with both a poverty trap and endogenous growth. The resulting...

Is it politically feasible for governments to engineer endogenous growth? This paper illustrates two reasonable political decision mechanisms by which fiscal policy generates endogenous growth with a single accumulable factor, under a constant returns to scale production technology, and without...

We study the effect of capital controls on the level of investment in human capital and the resulting growth path of an economy. The economy consists of two groups of agents based on the ownership of factors of production. One type of agents – called workers – own human capital and bequeath...

This paper constructs a heterogenous agent model of endogenous distribution and growth. When the labor leisure choice of agents is exogenous, the factor holding ratios of households converges to a mass point that is independent of the initial distribution of capital in the steady state. There is...

We construct an overlapping generations model to study the effect of capital controls on human capital investments and the incidence of redistributive politics in a growing economy. We argue that the conventional wisdom linking higher capital controls to lower growth is reproduced only when an...