Volatility has been one of the most active and successful areas of research in time series econometrics and economic forecasting in recent decades. This chapter provides a selective survey of the most important theoretical developments and empirical insights to emerge from this burgeoning...

From a macroeconomic perspective, the short-term interest rate is a policy instrument under the direct control of the central bank. From a finance perspective, long rates are risk-adjusted averages of expected future short rates. Thus, as illustrated by much recent research, a joint...

The paper develops a model of foreign direct investments (FDI) and foreign portfolio investments (FPI). FDI is characterized by hands-on management style which enables the owner to obtain relatively refined information about the productivity of the firm. This superiority, relative to FPI, comes...

An income tax is generally levied on both capital and labor income. The working young bears mostly the burden of the tax on labor income, whereas the retired old, who already acummulated her savings, bears the brunt of the capital income tax. Therefore, there arise two types of conflict in the...

The note analyzes how globalization forces induce monetary authorities, guided in their policies by the welfare criterion of a representative household, to put greater emphasis on reducing the inflation rate than on narrowing the output gaps

Migration of young workers (as distinct from retirees), even when driven in by the generosity of the welfare state, slows down the trend of increasing dependency ratio. But, even though low-skill migration improves the dependency ratio, it nevertheless burdens the welfare state. Recent studies...

The behavior of taxes on capital income in the recent decades points to the notion that international tax competition that follows globalization of capital markets put strong downward pressures on the taxation of capital income; a race to the bottom. This behavior has been perhaps most pronounced...

The New-Keynesian aggregate supply derives from micro-foundations an inflation-dynamics model very much like the tradition in the monetary literature. Inflation is primarily affected by: (i) economic slack; (ii) expectations; (iii) supply shocks; and (iv) inflation persistence. This paper...