According to the pollution haven hypotheses differences in environmental regulation affect trade flows and plant location. Specifically, environmental stringency should decrease exports and increase imports of "dirty" goods. This paper estimates a gravity model to establish whether the...

This paper provides an update on the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) estimates for 12 euro area (EA) countries. First, based on quarterly data over the 1990-2012 period, our study does not find a significant heterogeneity in the degree of pass-through across the monetary union members, in...

This paper investigates whether exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into import prices is a nonlinear phenomenon for five heavily indebted Euro area countries, namely the so-called GIIPS group (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). Using logistic smooth transition models, we explore the...

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...

The European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE) are shadowed by professionals and academic economists who provide a separate policy rate recommendation in advance of the central bank's announcement. We explore differences between shadow and actual committee decisions based on an...