It is widely recognised that the institutional architecture housing monetary union in Europe is deeply flawed. Although there has been considerable discussion about how these shortcomings can be put right, relatively little has been said about the role EU social policy can play in making the...

This paper suggests an explanation for the heavy trading volume observed on the US capital markets, the world's largest. Heterodox economic theory puts much of this volume down to speculation. Mainstream theory tends to support this thesis, either directly or indirectly, by giving space to the...

This paper presents a radical critique of the Tobin tax--a tax on currency transactions--by undercutting certain assumptions about the size and character of the world's foreign exchange markets which furnish the tax with its basic rationale. While it is acknowledged that only a fraction of the...

We consider the relative effects of globalisation and regionalism in the context of recent developments in the world economy. We extend and advance the work of Chortareas and Pelagidis using the recently updated Penn World Tables data. This allows consideration of the recent 'golden era' of...

The literature on the theoretical and empirical aspects of the relationship between finance and economic growth is both substantial and extensive. The same cannot be said on the relationship between financial development and poverty reduction--an equally important aspect. In this study, we visit...

This paper focuses on an alternative perspective on inflation to that of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU). It indicates that there are no automatic forces leading to a level of aggregate demand consistent with constant inflation. Inflationary pressures arise from...

This paper proposes an alternative stability and growth pact to the one which accompanied the introduction of the euro in January 1999. The latter is part of the third stage of economic and monetary union and, will govern the economic policies of the member countries which have joined the single...