The interest rate is generally considered as an important driver of macroeconomic investment characterised by a particular form of path dependency, "hysteresis". At the same time, the interest rate channel is a central ingredient of monetary policy transmission. In this context, we shed light on...

This study analyzes long-run and short-run dynamics between the current account and the real effective dollar exchange rates from a novel perspective. Applying multivariate cointegration techniques, we first test for a long-run relationship between the real effective dollar exchange rate and the...

One of the most interesting questions for policymakers which have emerged from the financial crisis deals with the strength of links between the demand and supply sides of the economy. The traditional view that only cyclical policies influence the former, and structural policies the latter has...

The belief that the ECB follows the US Federal Reserve in setting its policy is so entrenched with market participants and commentators that the search for empirical support would seem to be a trivial task. However, this is not the case. We find that the ECB is indeed often influenced by the...

According to the traditional 'optimum currency area' approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate. This paper takes a different approach and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may...

With the extension of its competence for social policy legislation in the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, the EU has adopted a significantly new social dimension in the past ten years. According to the Copenhagen criteria, the CEEC candidate countries have to adopt the former via the acquis...

In a baseline micro model a band of inaction due to hiring- and firing-costs is widened by option value effects of exchange rate uncertainty. Based on this micro foundation an aggregation approach is presented. Under uncertainty, intervals of weak response to exchange rate reversals (called...