The behavior of commodities is critical for developing and developed countries alike. This paper contributes to the empirical evidence on the co-movement and determinants of commodity prices. Using nonstationary panel methods, we document a statistically significant degree of co-movement due to...

In the growth literature, researchers are typically concerned with macro convergence. However, to the extent that macro dynamics result from the underlying microeconomic relations, convergence should also be investigated at the micro-level. In this paper, we suggest an approach that allows...

This study asks why corruption is increasing in European countries and what are the most important factors that explain such corruption? Although corruption scandals, speeches and reports indicate that corruption persists in European countries no one has tested the causes of corruption in...

We develop methods for Bayesian model averaging (BMA) or selection (BMS) in Panel Vector Autoregressions (PVARs). Our approach allows us to select between or average over all possible combinations of restricted PVARs where the restrictions involve interdependencies between and heterogeneities...

The disconnect between rising short and low long interest rates has been a distinctive feature of the 2000s. Both research and policy circles have argued that international forces, such as global monetary policy (e.g. Rogoff, 2006); international business cycles (e.g. Borio and Filardo, 2007);...

This paper investigates the role of institutions in determining per capita income levels and growth. It contributes to the empirical literature by using different variables as proxies for institutions and by developing a deeper analysis of the issues arising from the use of weak and too many...

The paper investigates the role of real exchange rate misalignment on long-run growth for a set of ninety countries using time series data from 1980 to 2004. We first estimate a panel data model (using fixed and random effects) for the real exchange rate, with different model specifications, in...

This paper applies recently developed time series and heterogeneous panel nonlinear unit root tests to 24 OECD and 33 non-OECD countries’ consumption-income ratios over the period 1951–2003. This extends evidence provided in the recent literature to consider nonlinear adjustment in time...

In this paper we re-examine the long standing and puzzling correlation between national savings and investment in industrial countries. We apply an econometric methodology that allows us to separate idiosyncratic correlation at the country level from correlation at the global level. In a major...

This paper examines the impact of anticipated and unanticipated monetary policy announcements, of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee on UK sectoral stock returns. The monetary policy shock is generated from the change in the three-month sterling LIBOR futures contract. Using a...