Rain affects electoral turnout both through a direct effect on the cost of voting and by changing the opportunity cost. In a panel of Norwegian municipalities I find that rain on Election Day increases turnout. As turnout affects electoral outcomes, rain provides an exogeneous source of...

According to the disciplining hypothesis, globalization restrains governments by inducing increased budgetary pressure. As a consequence, governments shift their expenditures in favour of transfers and subsidies and away from capital expenditures. This expenditure shift is potentially enhanced...

After having been ignored for a long time by economists, happiness is becoming an object of serious research in 21st century economics. In Section 2 we sketch the present status of happiness economics. In Section 3 we consider the practical applicability of happiness economics, retaining the...

Motivated by the process of economic development in Eastern Germany since the German reunification we set up a dynamic macroeconomic model of a small open economy where both capital and labor are mobile and there are increasing returns to scale at the aggregate level. The model features multiple...

This paper reviews economic developments in Iceland following its financial collapse in 2008, focusing on causes and consequences of the crash. The review is presented in the context of the Nordic region, with broad comparisons also with developments elsewhere on the periphery of Europe, in...

We employ a wavelet approach and conduct a time-frequency analysis of dynamic correlations between pairs of key traded assets (gold, oil, and stocks) covering the period from 1987 to 2012. The analysis is performed on both intra-day and daily data. We show that heterogeneity in correlations...

We analyze the transmission of global financial crisis to business cycles in China and India. The pattern of business cycles in emerging Asian economies generally displays a low degree of synchronization with the OECD countries, which is consistent with the decoupling hypothesis. By contrast,...

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 had major implications for the foreign exchange market. We review events and implications for exchange rates, volatility, returns to currency investing, and transaction costs. This “blow-by-blow” narrative is intended to be a resource for researchers seeking...

We assess the sustainability of the public finances of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIIPS), allowing for possible non-linearities in the form of threshold behaviour of the fiscal authorities. We provide some evidence of fiscal sustainability when debt gets “too high” relative...