The creation of EMU and the ECB has triggered a discussion of the future of EMU. Independent observers have pointed to a number of shortcomings or hazard areas' in the construction of EMU, such as the absence of a central lender of last resort function for EMU, the lack of a central authority...

This paper is the first to study empirically the effects of European antidumping actions on import diversion from importers 'named' in an antidumping investigation, and potentially subject to protectionist measures, to countries not named' in the investigation. For this purpose we use a unique...

This paper discusses how price stability can be defined and how price stability can be maintained in practice. Some lessons for the Eurosystem are also considered. With regard to defining price stability, the choice between price-level stability and low (including zero) inflation and the...

In recent years the world economy has been subject to large and unsyncronized changes in fiscal policies, high and volatile real rates of tnterest, large fluctuations in real exchange rates, and significant variations in private-sector spending. This paper reviews some of the key facts...

Casual observation indicates that in recent years real interest rates in the United States appear to have risen sharply and have remained high relative to historical standards. Many observers have claimed that these high real rates have been transmitted abroad and have lead to high real rates in...

In many countries holders of patents must pay an annual renewal fee in order to keep their patents in force. This paper uses data on the proportion of patents renewed, and the renewal fees faced by, post World War II cohorts of patents in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, in conjunction...

Economic and social historians have traditionally been concerned to measure changes in the income and welfare of populations in the past.Until recently, however, they have not recognized that anthropometric data, such as evidence on the average height achieved by a population at a particular...

We examine the relationship between immigration and attitudes toward redistribution using a newly assembled data set of immigrant stocks for 140 regions of 16 Western European countries. Exploiting within-country variations in the share of immigrants at the regional level, we find that native...

By merging KLEMS data sets and aggregating over the ten largest Western European nations (EU-10), we are able to compare and contrast productivity growth up through 2015 starting from 1950 in the U.S. and from 1972 in the EU-10. Data are provided at the aggregate level, as well as for 16...

What incentives do governments have to negotiate "new trade agreements," i.e., agreements that constrain not only governments' choices of tariffs, but also their domestic regulatory policies? We focus on horizontal product standards, i.e., those that impose requirements along a horizontal...