This paper analyses how job security policies, which in practice result in higher firing costs, affect long-run employment and investment in a two country model with free trade in goods and capital. The effects turn out to depend crucially on the preferences of trade unions, and in particular on...

This paper addresses the question of the possible real side effects of exchange rate devaluation in a small dependent economy, with a specific empirical application to Jordan. A macroeconomic model is constructed on the basis of a number of stylized facts which characterize the Jordanian...

Until 1989 the economic policy strategy of Jordan was inward looking with emphasis on import substitution facilitated by a high tariff wall. Since then, the strategy has been changed in the direction of a more outward looking strategy characterized by attempts to stimulate exports, by cuts in...

This paper contributes to the growing literature on mean reversion in stock markets by examining a newly constructed Danish data set for the period 1922-95. Variance ratio tests clearly reject the random walk hypothesis at the 2-year horizon, that is, the riskiness of a 2-year investment is...

How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner welfare state to reap the benefits of integraiton or is it necessary to expand the welfare state to offset some negative consequences of international integration? This paper addresses these issues in a fully...

How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner welfare state to reap the benefits of integraiton or is it necessary to expand the welfare state to offset some negative consequences of international integration? This paper addresses these issues in a fully...

If productivity increases more slowly for services than for manufactured goods then services suffer from Baumol’s cost disease and tend to become relatively more costly over time. Since the welfare state in all countries is an important supplier of tax financed services, this translates into a...