The EC’s association and preference policy has again and again given rise to criticism by those developing countries who are not favoured as well as by the other industrial states. Sometimes, however, it seems that preferences have been overestimated. It cannot be overlooked that the...

This paper introduces a new approach to understanding investment. The distinctive feature of our approach is that shocks to the economic fundamentals have both persistent and transitory components, and that firms must disentangle the persistent from the transitory shocks. The model generates...

In this paper we analyse the employment implications of firing restrictions. We find that when a recession is expected and the trend rate of productivity growth is small, a rise in firing costs affects mainly the hiring decision. Thus there is a negative effect on average employment. When, on...