We evaluate the empirical relevance of real convergence on the process of nominal convergence for the new EU Member States. We focus our discussion on two main channels: productivity growth and increased trade openness. Productivity growth can have a positive effect on price levels via the...

We analyze the sustainability of the US current account (CA) deficit by means of unit-root tests. First, we argue that there are several reasons to believe that the CA may follow a non-linear mean-reversion behavior under the null of stationarity. Using a non-linear ESTAR model we can reject the...

The recent literature on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) has emphasized the role of two phenomena that may lead to the rejection of the PPP hypothesis: structural breaks and non-linear adjustment induced by transaction costs. These two hypotheses are analyzed separately in the literature. We...

The purpose of this paper is to contribute a new model of the Gold Standard, focusing on the interaction between resource scarcity and demographics. In a dynamic micro-founded model we find that: i) prices and equilibrium gold holdings increase with population (a scale effect), but decrease with...