Banking regulation invites banks to gamble when buying government bonds that regulators consider to be risk-free. The adverse effects on financial stability are known. In turn, this study shows that governments have an incentive to use banking regulation in order to enhance their fiscal...

This paper studies the causes of price dispersion in the euro area emerging in response to a shock that hits all member countries symmetrically. We use a panel VAR model which is estimated over the period 1996 - 2007 to generate impulse responses of a range of price and wage variables to an oil...

This paper explores the importance of housing and mortgage market heterogeneity in 12 European countries for the transmission of monetary policy. We use a panel VAR model which is estimated over the period 19952006 to generate impulse responses of key macroeconomic variables to a monetary policy...

This paper explores the economic consequences of the enlargement of the European Union with countries from Central and Eastern Europe. We focus on integration aspects that go beyond the reduction of formal trade barriers, namely accession to the internal market and free movement of labour. The...

This paper investigates whether joint economic and political integration leads to larger economic benefits than just economic integration. The identification strategy rests on the fact that Norway, at the time of the 1995 Enlargement of the European Union (EU), had successfully completed...