Although oil price shocks have long been viewed as one of the leading candidates for explaining U.S. recessions, surprisingly little is known about the extent to which oil price shocks explain recessions. We provide a formal analysis of this question with special attention to the possible role...

In a two-country international trade model with oligopolistic competition, we study the conditions on market structure and trade costs under which a merger policy designed to benefit domestic consumers is too tough or too lenient from the viewpoint of the foreign country. Calibrating the model...

Using birth certificates matched to schooling records for Florida children born 1992 - 2002, we assess whether family disadvantage disproportionately impedes the pre-market development of boys. We find that, relative to their sisters, boys born to disadvantaged families have higher rates of...

The 2008-2009 global financial crisis has raised new questions about the relationship between equity fund flows and stock market returns. This paper analyses it using US monthly data over the period 2000:1-2015:08. A VAR-GARCH(1,1)-in-mean model with a BEKK representation is estimated, and a...

This paper presents the first analysis of the effect of teacher collective bargaining on long-run labor market and educational attainment outcomes. Our analysis exploits the different timing across states in the passage of duty-to-bargain laws in a difference-in-difference framework to identify...

This paper investigates whether the RMB is in the process of replacing the US dollar as the anchor currency in nine ASEAN countries, and also the linkages between the ASEAN currencies and a regional currency unit. A long-memory (fractional integration) model allowing for endogenously determined...

Previous assessments of nominal exchange rate determination have focused upon a narrow set of models typically of the 1970 s vintage, including monetary and portfolio balance models. In this paper we re-assess the in-sample fit and out-of-sample prediction of a wider set of models that have been...

This paper studies the reaction of the mean and volatility of the euro-dollar exchange rate to statements of ECB officials during the first years of EMU. We focus on statements on monetary policy and the (potential) strength of the euro. We find that the Bundesbank has dominated the news...

We present new empirical evidence for the US economy that inflation reduces the inequality of the earnings distribution. The main mechanism emphasized in this paper is the tax income bracket effect. Governments only adjust the nominal income tax brackets slowly to a rise in prices, typically...

In this paper we develop a multi-sector model of firms pricing behaviour under imperfect competition. We allow for the fact that some goods sold will be for final consumption, while others will be used as intermediate goods in further production. We assume that price setters are constrained by...