A high degree of cyclical synchronization between the new EU member states (NMS) from Central and Eastern Europe and the euro area is generally seen as a prerequisite for successful EMU enlargement. We establish stylized facts on economic linkages between NMS and the euro area using dynamic...

This paper discusses the emergence of endogenous redistributive cycles in a stochastic growth model with incomplete asset markets and heterogeneous agents, where agents vote on the degree of progressivity in the tax-transfer-scheme. We develop two models, the first being highly-stylized, where...

We seek to shed new light on the social process of political opinion formation from an evolutionary perspective.We propose a model in which heterogeneous citizens collectively learn and modify their opinions about the most convenient size of public expenditure for the economy. In Section 1, we...

Consider a simple world populated with two kinds of individuals, those who work and create wealth (peasants) and those who survive by taking the property of others (bandits). The presence of bandits creates an incentive for peasants to seek protection, to defend their property. But protection is...

The paper treats opinion dynamics under bounded confidence when agents employ, beside an arithmetic mean, means like a geometric mean, a power mean or a random mean in aggregating opinions. The different kinds of collective dynamics resulting for these means are studied and compared by...

We examine optimal policy in an open-economy model with uncertainty and learning, where monetary policy actions affect the economy through the real exchange rate channel. Our results show that the degree of caution or activism in optimal policy depends on whether central banks are in coordinated...

This paper exhibits and quantifies a new theoretical channel of the non-neutrality of inflation transiting through capital market imperfections. Unconstrained households change their financial position in front of a change in the inflation rate, whereas constrained households can not. Thus...

In this paper, I estimate an open economy DSGE model for the Taiwanese economy. The model features multiple sources of real and nominal rigidities, including price and wage stickiness, investment and bond adjustment costs, as well as incomplete pass-through of exchange rates. Contrary to the...

We study in a VAR model the effects of monetary policy shocks with new Italian flow of funds data for 1980-2002. First, our results are consistent with the literature, without being affected by commonly found puzzles. Second, new features of the transmission of monetary policy shocks to the...