This paper empirically investigates the differences in the motives for raising privatization proceeds for a panel of 22 OECD countries from 1990 to 2001. We test whether privatizations can be mainly interpreted (a) as a means to foster growth, increase tax income, and relax the fiscal stance,...

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...

The variability of the euro seems to have a statistically significant and economically small, but non-negligible, impact on labour markets in Euroland. Unemployment tends to increase and employment growth tends to fall whenever the effective exchange rate of the euro or the bilateral euro/dollar...

A model leading to employment hysteresis due to sunk hiring- and firing-costs is proposed. A potential mechanism based on a band of inaction that could account for a 'weaker' relationship between employment and its determinants is augmented by exchange rate uncertainty. As a result of option...

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...

This paper analyzes whether in institutional structures on capital markets contribute to explaining why some OECD-countries, in particular the Anglo-Saxon countries, have been much more successful over the last two decades in producing employemt growth and in reducing unemployment than most...

Labor market performance has differed considerably between OECD countries over the last two decades. The focus of the literature so far has been to ask whether these differences can be explained by varying degrees of labor market rigidities and generosity of welfare states. This paper takes a...