As in many other OECD countries, government investment expressed as share of GDP has decreased in The Netherlands. Using the concept of Granger causality, we test in a bivariate vector autoregression framework various hypothesis that have been put forward to explain this decline. It is concluded...

We test a simple model of exchange rate regime choice with data for 65 non-OECD countries covering the period 1980-94.We find that the variance of output at home and in potential target c ountries as well as the correlation between home and foreign real activity are powerful and robust...

We test whether, in addition to economic conditions, IMF credit is influenced by political factors. On the basis of a panel model for 128 countries over the period 1972-1998, we find that debt service scaled to exports, international reserve holdings scaled to imports and economic growth, as...

Nowadays, it is widely believed that greater disclosure and clarity over policy may lead to greater predictability of central bank actions. We examine whether communication by the European Central Bank (ECB) adds information compared to the information provided by a Taylor rule model in which...

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 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 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...

Nowadays, it is widely believed that greater disclosure and clarity over policy may lead to greater predictability of central bank actions. We examine whether communication by the European Central Bank (ECB) adds information compared to the information provided by a Taylor rule model in which...

This paper introduces new data on the term in office of central bank governors in 137 countries for 1970-2004. Our panel models show that the probability that a central bank governor is replaced in a particular year is positively related to the share of the term in office elapsed, political and...