This paper considers the Portuguese transition towards full membership of the European Community in the light of the conflicts between domestic political objectives and the process of economic integration and liberalization. The paper studies two "integration episodes", the development of an...

When the 1987 general elections brought a durable government to Portugal, the national environment was still inflationary. Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts of successive ministers of finance/central bank governor pairs, the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) were met and the...

Our focus in this paper is macroeconomic policy in the countries of Central Europe: The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. All four are committed to joining the European Union. Accordingly, their macroeconomic policies need to put them on a credible path towards meeting the entry...

This paper presents a simple model of the effects of exchange rate flexibility on the transmission of income shocks. The starting point is the traditional channel through exports and imports known as the "locomotive". The intertemporal exchange rate model presented here also allows for the...

The ineffectiveness of real devaluation as a stabilization policy does not imply that the nominal exchange rate should be held constant in the face of a domestic inflation. In this circumstance, import duties and export subsidies would have to be escalated to counter the potential erosion of the...

In the classic analysis of smuggling, importers choose the optimal mix of legal and illegal trade, given trade taxes and the technology of detection. This paper introduces an inconvertible currency into the framework, so that illegal trade is valued at a rate higher than the (fixed) official...

This paper reviews the traditional ambiguity of Portuguese policy towards external liberalization. Product and labour markets have become segmented as a result of the soft budget constraint faced by large corporations and job protection in the public sector. Relaxation of entry requirements into...

Globalization, governance and economic performance affect each other in very complex mutual relationships. In this Paper, we establish a clear and well-circumscribed hypothesis: ‘Is there an effect of globalization on governance?’ To test this hypothesis or, even more specifically, to test...

This paper uses a stochastic growth model with consumption, saving, portfolio choice between real capital and government bonds and money holding as a cash-in-advance constraint. It shows that money supply changes due to government expenditure changes or open market operations are never...

We consider a simple general equilibrium model for the determination of asset prices together with full equilibria in the commodity and money markets. In this way portfolio aspects are introduced into a dynamic macro model which has many features from growth theory. Money holdings are modelled...