Productivity performance in European countries has been a policy concern for some time. This paper shows that productivity can be enhanced by product market policies which, by increasing competition and efficiency, facilitate higher rates of firms' entry and exit (i.e., firm churning). Drawing...

Since the term was first coined in studies on the 1990s Japanese crisis, the concept of zombification has been investigated and revived repeatedly when concerns arise about credit misallocation and stagnating productivity growth in an economy. The starting point for these studies nearly always...

Productivity performance in European countries has been a policy concern for some time. This paper shows that productivity can be enhanced by product market policies which, by increasing competition and efficiency, facilitate higher rates of firms' entry and exit (i.e., firm churning). Drawing...

Since the term was first coined in studies on the 1990s Japanese crisis, the concept of zombification has been investigated and revived repeatedly when concerns arise about credit misallocation and stagnating productivity growth in an economy. The starting point for these studies nearly always...

The paper proposes a modelling approach for euro area goods and services trade volumes and prices on the basis of a break-down of trade data into their intra- and extra-area components. Using the evidence from the newly estimated trade equations, the paper gives new insights into two important...

From a conceptual point of view there is little consensus of what should be the “ideal indicator” of international cost and price competitiveness as each of the standard measures typically employed has its own merits and drawbacks. This calls for addressing the question from an empirical...

In a globalised world economy, global factors have become increasingly important to explain trade flows at the expense of country-specific determinants. This paper shows empirically the superiority of direct forecasting methods, in which world trade is directly forecasted at the aggregate...

Forecasting the world economy is a difficult task given the complex interrelationships within and across countries. This paper proposes a number of approaches to forecast short-term changes in selected world economic variables and aims, first, at ranking various forecasting methods in terms of...

This paper uses a Global Vector Auto-Regression (GVAR)model in a panel of 21 emerging market and advanced economies to investigate the factors behind the dynamics of global trade flows, with a particular view on the issue of global trade imbalances and on the conditions of their unwinding. The...

This paper aims to shed light on why the downturn in global trade during the intensification of the financial crisis in 2008Q4-2009Q1 was so severe and synchronized across the world, and also examines the subsequent recovery in global trade during 2009Q2-2010Q1. The paper finds that a structural...