In this paper an effort has been made to unveil some hidden and implicit assumptions that has been used in different models dealing with analysis and measurement of contribution of human capital to economic growth. In order to do it we started from the general production function with...

We investigate the predictive information content in foreign exchange volatility risk premia for exchange rate returns. The volatility risk premium is the difference between realized volatility and a model-free measure of expected volatility that is derived from currency options, and reflects...

This paper focuses on the question of income convergence among countries. While the methodology used to determine convergence differs from the common cross-sectional approach, it corroborates Baumol's finding of a convergence club among the world's wealthiest countries. It also shows that there...

This paper examines the relationship between trade and income convergence by focusing on groups of countries comprising major trade partners. The majority of these groups exhibited significant convergence. Furthermore, a comparison of the trade-based groups with different, randomly selected,...

Many countries, both industrialized and developing, appear to have experienced a slowdown in economic growth. We examine a large sample of countries and find that a majority exhibit a significant structural break in their post-war growth rates. In nearly all of these cases the break was followed...

For decades, the prevailing sentiment among economists was that growth rates remain constant over the long run. Kaldor considered this to be one of the six important `stylized facts' that theory should address, and until the emergence of endogenous growth models, this was a fundamental feature...

This paper employs ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation to examine the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the effect of FDI on per capita GDP growth in Bolivia over the period 1990:1-1998:4. The regression results find that the real effective multilateral exchange rate, the...

This paper analyses several procedures for fixing conversion rates at the start of EMU. One consists of announcing a fixed conversion rate; a second (proposed by Lalmfalussy) would announce that the conversion rate will be an average of past market exchange rates; and a third involves announcing...

This paper analyses the constraints on the choice of the conversion rates resulting from the fact that the external value of the Ecu cannot be changed at the start of the third stage of EMU and that one Ecu must be converted into one Euro. These constraints force the authorities to accept the...

An empirical model of time-varying realignment in an exchange rate target zone is developed. Expected rates of devaluation are estimated as the difference between interest rate differentials and estimated expected rates of depreciation within the exchange rate band, using French...