In this paper the seasonal unit root test of Hylleberg et al. (1990) is generalized to cover a heterogenous panel. The procedure follows the work of Im, Pesaran and Shin (2002). Test statistics are proposed and critical values are obtained by simulations. Moreover, the properties of the tests...

In economic development, structural change among the three main sectors of an economy accompanies with aggregate economic growth. Nevertheless the question whether economic growth causes structural change or change in the economic structure causes aggregate growth is still unanswered. To shed...

The present paper compares expected inflation to (econometric) inflation forecasts based on a number of forecasting techniques from the literature using a panel of ten industrialized countries during the period of 1988 to 2007. To capture expected inflation we develop a recursive filtering...

Central bank independence (CBI) is a very important precondition for price stability. However, the empirical evidence for a correlation between both is relatively weak. In this paper, this weakness is countered with a) an extended measure of monetary commitment, which includes well-known...

A recent literature has pointed at potential negative effects of exchange rate volatility on innovation. In this paper, we propose that there may be a direct effect as well as an indirect effect via export activity. We test these hypotheses for sectoral R&D intensities using OECD panel data for...

This paper examines the presence of sectoral convergence of labor productivity between 14 OECD countries. Using the OECD International Sectoral Data Base (ISDB), the paper looks at the developments within 12 distinct sectors during the period 1970-1995. The change of the coefficients of variance...

EU-TE trade is increasingly characterised by intra-industry trade. For some countries (Czech Republic), the share of intra-industry trade in total trade with the EU approaches 60 percent. The decomposition of intra-industry trade into horizontal and vertical shares reveals overwhelming vertical...