The expansion of regionalism has spawned an extensive theoretical literature analysing the effects of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on trade flows. In this paper we focus on FTAs (also called European agreements) between the European Union (EU-15) and the Central and Eastern European countries...

This paper analyses trade specialisation dynamics in two Eastern European countries (Romania and Bulgaria - EEC-2) vis-à-vis the core EU member states (EU-15) over the period 1990-2006. Specifically, we focus on whether there is a shift towards intra-industry trade leading to economic...

This paper focuses on nominal exchange rates, specifically the US dollar rate vis-à-vis the Euro and the Japanese Yen at a daily frequency. We model both absolute values of returns and squared returns using long-memory techniques, being particularly interested in volatility modelling and...

This paper examines the process of price discovery in the MTS system, which builds on the parallel quoting of euro-denominated government securities on a number of (relatively large) domestic markets and on a (relatively small) European marketplace (EuroMTS). Using twenty-seven months of daily...

We model EU countries' bank ratings using financial variables and allowing for intercept and slope heterogeneity. Our aim is to assess whether "old" and "new" EU countries are rated differently and to determine whether "new" ones are assigned lower ratings, ceteris paribus, than "old" ones. We...

We study how fathers and mothers income satisfaction correlates with the income satisfaction of their sons and daughters, as well as with other economic and socio-demographic variables. We estimate these correlations using data on parents and children in households surveyed in the eight waves of...

This paper estimates a time-varying AR-GARCH model of inflation producing measures of inflation uncertainty for the euro area, and investigates the linkages between them in a VAR framework, also allowing for the possible impact of the policy regime change associated with the start of EMU in...

This paper proposes new metrics for the process of price discovery on the main electronic trading platform for euro-denominated government securities. Analysing price data on daily transactions for 107 bonds over a period of twenty-seven months, we find a greater degree of price leadership of...

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...