This paper investigates the relationship between bilateral FDI positions and cross-country business cycle correlations in the period 1982–2001. We find that countries that have comparatively intensive FDI relations also have more synchronized business cycles during 1995–2001. Before 1995, we...

Foreign-owned firms account for a significant part of output in many industrialized countries. However, compared to international trade linkages, relatively little is known about the role of foreign direct investment linkages and multinational firm behavior in the transmission of disturbances...

This paper assesses the information content of two survey indicators for consumption developments in the near future for eight European countries in the period 1985-1998. Empirical work on this topic typically focuses on consumer confidence, the perceptions of buyers of consumption goods. This...

In this paper we propose straightforward extensions of multi-union, monopolistic competition models appearing in the recent literature on the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy. We extend these models from the Stackelberg equilibrium to the Nash equilibrium under variations in labor market...

In the last 20 years issues of policy effectiveness and neutrality (notably with reference to monetary policy) have been increasingly raised in the context of static LQ (linear-quadratic) policy games. The general conditions ensuring policy non-neutrality in a strategic environment remains...

This paper examines the information provided to the private sector by central anks. By using the principal component analysis, we investigated the variance of the procedural rules followed by nine major central banks about information reatments. We investigate problems related to the information...

This paper examines the trade-off between exchange rate stability and monetary autonomy for a target zone. Using the guilder-mark target zone in the pre-EMU period as a case study, we empirically estimate how much policy discretion the Dutch central bank still enjoyed and how much had been ceded...

Issues of policy effectiveness and neutrality are widespread in the economic literature. They have been increasingly raised in specific contexts within the class of LQ (linear-quadratic) policy games in the last 20 years, notably with reference to monetary policy. The more general conditions...

This paper examines the information provided to the private sector by central banks. By using the principal component analysis, we investigated the variance of the procedural rules followed by nine major central banks about information treatments. We investigate problems related to the...

The main aim of this article is to investigate the sources of non- neutrality in policy games involving one or more trade unions. We use a simple set up in order to clearly expose the basic mechanisms that also work in more complex frameworks. We show that there are common roots in the...