In the presence of economies of scale in the investment technology, trade openness may have non-conventional effects on the level of investment, its cyclical behavior, and the volatility of the terms of trade. Trade openness may lead to boom-bust cycles of investment supported by self-fulfilling...

In the presence of lumpy investment cost of adjustment, globalization may have non-conventional effects on the level of investment and its cyclical behavior. Trade openness may lead to a discrete 'jump' in the level of investment, as it may trigger a discrete change in the terms of trade. Such a...

In the presence of lumpy adjustment costs of investment, globalization may have non-conventional effects on the level of investment and its cyclical behaviour. Free trade may lead to a discrete ‘jump’ in the level of investment, as it triggers discrete terms-of-trade changes which either...

Like any trade activity, migration tends to generate gains to all parties involved - the migrants as well as the native-born population. With a mal-functioning labour market, however, migration will exacerbate the imperfections in the market. Consequently, it may lead to losses to the...

The paper develops a model with ¡§lumpy¡¨ setup costs, which govern the flow of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI). Every country is potentially both a source for FDI flows to several host countries, and a host for FDI flows from several source countries. But technologically-advanced...

We develop a framework in which the host-country productivity has a positive effect on the intensive margin (the size of FDI flows), but only an ambiguous effect on the extensive margin (the likelihood of FDI flows to occur). The source-country productivity has a negative effect on the extensive...

The aging of the population shakes the public finance of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We develop a political-economy framework in which this demographic change leads to the downsizing of the social security system, and, as a consequence, to the emergence of supplemental individual...