In this paper we consider a number of key issues related to the policy coordination in a monetary union that has been recently discussed in the literature. To this end we propose a multi-country New-Keynesian model of a monetary union cast in the framework of linear quadratic differential games....

Policies and explicit private incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social preferences. Evidence from 51 experimental studies indicates that this crowding out effect is...

We analyze how the threat of a potential future regime shift affects optimal management. We use a simple general growth model to analyze four cases that involve combinations of stock collapse versus changes in system dynamics, and exogenous versus endogenous probabilities of regime shift. Prior...

Fiscal policy has become quite controversial in the post-Keynesian era, the debate over the Obama stimulus package being a contentious recent example. Some pundits go so far as to take the position that macroeconomic theory has failed to meaningfully progress in terms of providing useful...

This paper analyses the trade balance effects of Europe agreements (EA) between the EU-15 and four new EU members from Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC-4) using both static and dynamic panel data approaches. Specifically, the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM, Blundell and Bond, 1998)...

We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. We compare a rigid (law set ex-ante) legal system and a flexible one (law set after observing current technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth at...

The interaction of monetary and fiscal policies is a crucial issue in a highly integrated economic area as the European Union. We argue that EMU, which introduced a common monetary policy and restrictions on fiscal policy at the national level, increases the need for macroeconomic policy...

The combination of discretionary monetary policy, labor-market distortions and nominal wage rigidity yields an inflation bias as monetary policy tries to exploit nominal wage contracts to address labour-market distortions Although an inflation target eliminates this inflation bias, it creates a...

It is widely argued that Europe's unified monetary policy calls for the international coordination at the fiscal level. We survey the issues involved with such coordination of fiscal policy as a demand management tool and we use a simple model to investigate the circumstances under which...

In this paper we suggest that Eurozone countries face a policy trade-off among: 1) a common rule imposing co-movements in fiscal policy; 2) financial stability; and 3) financial integration. We provide empirical evidence documenting the existence of such a trade-off in the period characterized...