This paper explores the impact of country size on labor market flexibility in a monetary union with a common monetary policy as conducted in EMU. I apply a Barro-Gordon framework and test its result empirically for EMU. Results confirm that small countries demand higher labor market flexibility...

Professor Becker´s 1956 paper about free banking was originally intended as a reaction to the 100-percent reserve proposals that were then popular at the University of Chicago. Today the original paper clearly illustrates how considerably our views and theories about free banking have evolved...

Despite the distinctive character of the Austrian approach to “microfoundations for macroeconomics”, the literature on free banking contains a number of arguments which make use of game-theoretic concepts and models such as the well-known Prisoner´s Dilemma model. While there can be no...

This paper examines the influence of monetary shocks in China on the U.S. economy over ‎‎1996-2012. The influence on the U.S. is through the sheer scale of China’s growth through ‎effects in demand for imports, particularly that of commodities. China’s growth influences ‎world...

Annotated remarks made at the 50th Anniversary Conference “Fortalecimiento institucional de los bancos centrales y efectividad de la política monetaria”, of the Central Bank of Nicaragua, February 2010. The paper lays out the importance of institutional strenthening (governance) as an...

Central banks can play an important role in facilitating and promoting regional economic and monetary integration. Examples are the European monetary union and a more recent initiative by a group of Asian central banks to boost liquidity in local bond markets in Asia through the “Asian Bond...

Closer cooperation between neighbouring countries has throughout the ages been part of their respective political agendas. In many regions of the world, the desire to create efficient economic spaces, and eventually perhaps even political union, has been one of the driving forces behind...

Iran’s agriculture part is one of the areas that can have an important effect on the growth of country’s economy. Concerning this, variables that can increase value added agriculture have been concentrated on and the government is supporting them. One of these policies is granting loanable...

Using SVAR models on quarterly data for 1996-97:1 to 2011-12:1, the paper examines the relative importance of various transmission channels of monetary policy to GDP growth and inflation in India. It finds that external exogenous factors prolong the impact of monetary policy transmission on GDP...

This paper analyses the issue of the dynamics of the TARGET2 system balances during the sovereign debt crisis. The development of these balances reflects the change in the distribution of the monetary base among the EMU Member States. During the sovereign debt crisis, while some countries, among...