Motivated by a recent demographic study establishing a link between macroeconomic fluctuations and the mortality index kt in the Lee-Carter model, we assess the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on the solvency of a life insurance company. Liabilities in our stochastic simulation framework...

While virtually all currency crisismodels recognise that the fate of a currency peg depends on how tenaciously policy makers defend it, they seldom model how this is done. We incorporate themechanics of speculation and the interest rate defence against it in the model ofMorris and Shin (American...

It has recently been argued that intra-eurosystem claims and liabilities in the form of TARGET2 balances would raise fundamental issues within the European monetary union. This article provides a framework for the economic analysis of TARGET2 balances and discusses the key arguments behind this...

By any measure, the European Monetary Union and the European Union are in a deep hole. In the summer of 2011 we came uncomfortably close to an uncontrolled sovereign default of an EU country, a member of the European Monetary Union, hardly ten years after the common currency project was...

This paper explains a currency crisis as an outcome of a switch in how monetary policy and fiscal policy are coordinated. The paper develops a model of an open economy in which monetary policy starts active, fiscal policy starts passive and, in a particular state of nature, monetary policy...

Microfoundations of the euro’s effect on euro area trade hinge on the timing, the speed and the size of adjustment in trade costs. We estimate timing, speed and size of adjustment in trade costs for sectoral trade data. Our approach allows for sector specific impacts of trade costs on sectoral...

In this paper we adapt a dynamic discrete choice model to examine the aggregated demand for single- and multi-year crop insurance contracts. We show that in a competitive insurance market with heterogeneous risk averse farmers, there is simultaneous demand for both insurance contracts. Moreover,...

This paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit-maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex-ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex-post. In any given period, after having observed her income, the agent...

Recently the topic of global warming has become very popular. The literature has concentrated its attention on the evidence of such eect, either by detecting regime shifts or change points in time series. The majority of these methods are designed to nd shifts in mean, but only few can do this...

Forecasting based pricing of Weather Derivatives (WDs) is a new approach in valuation of contingent claims on nontradable underlyings. Standard techniques are based on historical weather data. Forward-looking information such as meteorological forecasts or the implied market price of risk (MPR)...