The search for and dating of a possible european business cycle, has been inconclusive. At this stage, there is no consensus on the existence of such a cycle, or of its periodicity and amplitude, or of the relationship of individual member countries to that cycle. Yet cyclical convergence is the...

This paper is intended to make four main points that are relevant for previously planned economies in transition to a market economy. First, national output can be increased by reducing or eliminating relative price distortions through price reform and free trade and by thus enhancing...

This paper contributes to the literature on the differences in the transmission processes within Euroland. We start from the proposition that there are 'deep' differences in the nature of social conflicts and in the way countries deal with these conflicts. We empirically test this effect for the...

This paper presents new estimates of the economic benefits from economic and political integration. Using the synthetic counterfactuals method, we estimate how GDP per capita and labour productivity would have behaved for the countries that joined the European Union (EU) in the 1973, 1980s, 1995...

Emerging world countries have experienced over the last two decades a significant change in their trade patterns. Bold trade reforms have been followed by rapid rises in international trade levels. However, despite these radical changes, we know remarkably little about how changes in trade...

In 2007, countries in the euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits, and low spreads. Then the Financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recessions, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010, they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and,...

We consider the role of capital mobility and international taxation in explaining the observed diversity in long-term income growth rates. Under perfect capital mobility, international differences in taxes will not matter for total growth differentials. Policy differences have a role to play in...

This Paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model of North-South trade with scale-invariant growth. Northern firms devote resources to innovative R&D to discover higher quality products and Southern firms devote resources to imitative R&D to copy state-of-the-art quality Northern products....

We provide an exploratory quantitive analysis of the role of capital mobility and international taxation in explaining the observed cross-country diversity in the long-run rates of growth of per capita and total incomes as well as the population growth rates. Corroborative evidence is found for...

Major changes have occurred in the structure of former centrally planned economies, including a sharp rise in the share of services in GDP, employment and international transactions. However, large differences exist across transition economies with respect to services intensity and services...