In low-income countries privatization, if implemented appropriately, may play an important role in generating growth. Using data recently available from Central and Eastern Europe, we therefore investigate the impact of alternative methods of privatization on economic growth. Our analysis...

We analyze how reputational concerns of arbitrators affect the quality of their decision making. We assume that arbitrators differ in their ability to evaluate the correct decision and that information acquisition by arbitrators is costly and unobservable. We show that reputational concerns...

This paper analyses impulse response functions in the context of vector fractionally integrated time series. We derive analytically the restrictions required to identify the structural-form system. As an illustration of the recommended procedure, we also carry out an empirical application based...

In an incomplete contract setting, we analyze the contracting out of public service provision, comparing the performance of for-profit and not-for-profit private firms. Two institutional arrangements are considered, control rights lying either with the firm as under the UK's Private Finance...

This paper proposes a new procedure for analyzing volatility links between different markets based on a bivariate Markov switching model. An empirical application of this procedure to three emerging markets is examined and discussed.

This article discuses the identification of Generalised Rational Expectations Models. It is shown that the necessary and sufficient conditions for local identification of the Quasi-Structural Form (Q-SF) derive from the first derivatives of the Non-Linear Instrumental Variables (NLIV) criterion....

Stressing the inßuence of expected devaluation on currency crises, this paper shows that, in a fixed exchange-rate system with an escape clause, partial delegation of exchange-rate policy to an inßation-averse central banker reduces the probability of crisis.

In recent years, a growing number of Emerging Market Economies, as well as most advanced countries, have witnessed growth of pension funds as institutional investors. This has often occurred in the wake of pension reform shifting retirement income provision from pay-as-you-go to funding. The...