Is the harmonization of different food standards between countries in the context of free trade agreements exclusively positive, or is there a risk of high social costs for consumers? The harmonization of different national regulations plays an important role in contemporary trade policy. In...

Even though trade negotiations have increasingly come to focus on regulatory issues, the full impacts, that is, both social costs and benefits of regulatory changes, often remain unexamined in trade impact assessments. To bridge this gap, we scrutinize the theoretical foundations, methodologies...

The empirical literature on models of cyclical growth and distribution still lacks an explicit treatment of capital accumulation. Further, and from different theoretical perspectives, residential investment is seen as a critical driver of the business cycle. This paper addresses both issues....