The present paper investigates the cyclical nature of Consumer Sentiments Indices (CSIs) for the US and UK. Using Threshold Autoregressive (TAR) models the empirical analysis indicates that the US CSI is mean reverting but adjusts asymmetrically and downwardly rigid.

Political business cycle theories in modelling the interaction between the polity and the economic system have continually failed to consider questions of economic and political interdependence between nations. In considering the current principal political business cycle models we ask how the...

This paper studies the distributive impact of institutional change in developing countries. In such economies, property rights systems may preserve the interests of an influential minority, who can control key-markets, access to assets and investment opportunities, especially if they enjoy...

In the present paper we study the distributive impact of institutional change in developing countries. In such economies, economic institutions, such as property rights systems, may act to preserve the interests of a rich minority, but this depends crucially on the level of political equality....

The present paper outlines a theoretical model of agent-based learning. An agent ‘anchors’ his subjective expectations (or forecasts) to another agent’s subjective expectations. The former believes the latter has a better information set and, therefore, able to make better subjective...

In this paper we use a behavioural approach to studying household consumption behaviour in Malawi. In particular we are interested to know whether households use mental accounting when consuming different categories of good. It is useful for assessing the impact of remittances on household...