This study asks why corruption is increasing in European countries and what are the most important factors that explain such corruption? Although corruption scandals, speeches and reports indicate that corruption persists in European countries no one has tested the causes of corruption in...

In this paper we propose a novel empirical extension of the standard market microstructure order flow model. The main idea is that heterogeneity of beliefs in the foreign exchange market can cause model instability and such instability has not been fully accounted for in the existing empirical...

We propose an alterative approach to obtaining a permanent equilibrium exchange rate (PEER), based on an unobserved components (UC) model. This approach offers a number of advantages over the conventional cointegration-based PEER. Firstly, we do not rely on the prerequisite that cointegration...

The large appreciation and depreciation of the US dollar in the 1980s stimulated an important debate on the usefulness of unit root tests in the presence of structural breaks. In this paper, we propose a simple model to describe the evolution of the real exchange rate. We then propose a more...

The paper investigates the role of real exchange rate misalignment on long-run growth for a set of ninety countries using time series data from 1980 to 2004. We first estimate a panel data model (using fixed and random effects) for the real exchange rate, with different model specifications, in...

A widely held notion is that freely floating exchange rates are excessively volatile when moving from fixed to floating exchange rates. We re-examine the data and conclude that the disparity between the fundamentals and exchange rate volatility is more apparent than real, especially when the...

The breakdown of the Bretton Woods system and the adoption of generalized oating exchange rates ushered in a new era of exchange rate volatility and uncer- tainty. This increased volatility lead economists to search for economic models able to describe observed exchange rate behavior. The...

IThis paper sheds new light on a long-standing puzzle in the international finance literature, namely, that exchange rate expectations appear inaccurate and even irrational. We find for a comprehensive dataset that individual forecasters’ performance is skill-based. ‘Superior’ fore-casters...

Although the real exchange rate - real interest rate (RERI) relationship is central to most open economy macroeconomic models, empirical support for the relationship is generally found to be rather weak. In this paper we reinvestigate the RERI relationship using bilateral real exchange rate data...

A widely held notion holds that freely floating exchange rates are excessively volatile when judged against fundamentals and when moving from fixed to floating exchange rates. We re-examine the data and conclude that the disparity between the fundamentals and exchange rate volatility is more...