This paper, by the estimation of a structural VAR model on aggregate data from 1980 to 2002, examines the macroeconomic effects of an unexpected change in monetary policy on the euro area. The results are in line with the economic theory and they are close to the one estimated by other authors....

This paper investigates the role of a free press and the circulation of information on the capacity of a country to declare an exchange regime that differs from the regime it implements de facto. We report consistent evidence that greater press freedom and easier access to information result in...

This paper aims at discovering the decision rule the Governing Council of the ECB uses to set interest rates. We construct a Taylor rule for each member of the council and for the euro area as a whole, and aggregate the interest rates they produce using several classes of decision-making...

This paper explores the relationship between trade openness and energy consumption using data of 91 high, middle and low income countries. The study covers the period of 1980-2010. We have applied panel cointegration to examine long run relationship between the variables. The direction of causal...