This paper analyzes the effect of planned fiscal consolidation on GDP growth forecast errors from the years 2010-2013 using cross section analyses and fixed effects estimations. Our main findings are that fiscal multipliers have been underestimated in most instances for the year 2011 while we...

We scrutinize the role of capital flows in competitiveness in a set of seven euroarea member countries (Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic) in the context of real convergence and crisis. A specific focus is on Greece. The paper extends the seminal...

The financial crisis affected regions in Europe in a different magnitude. This is why we examine whether regions which incorporate banks with a higher intermediation quality grow faster in 'normal' times and are more resilient in 'bad' ones. For this purpose, we measure the intermediation...

In this paper a non-linear model is applied, where suddenly strong spurts of exports occur when changes of the exchange rate go beyond a zone of inaction, which we call 'play' area - analogous to mechanical play. We implement an algorithm describing path-dependent play-hysteresis into a...

This paper explores the effects of non-standard monetary policies on international yield relationships. Based on a descriptive analysis of international long-term yields, we find evidence that long-term rates have followed a global downward trend prior to as well as during the financial crisis....

This paper comments on the pros and cons of exit strategies. The focus is on the impact on the Euro area economy of the exit from unconventional monetary policies (UMP) by the Fed, which appears to be the first central bank to lay out an exiting path. In this context, it discusses the issue of...

Relations between economic variables are often characterized by a situation where initial conditions and the past realizations of economic variables matter. I.e. past (transient) exogenous disturbances and past states of the economic system do have an influence on the current economic relations....

This paper briefly assesses the effectiveness of the different non-standard monetary policy tools in the Euro Area. Its main focus is on the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) Programme which is praised by some as the ECB's 'magic wand'. Moreover, it discloses further possible unintended...

This paper investigates the effects of global oil and food price shocks to consumer prices in Middle East-North African (MENA) countries using threshold cointegration methods. Oil and food price shocks increase domestic prices in the long run, whereby the impact of food prices dominates. While...

Traditional specifications of export equations incorporate foreign demand as a demand pull factor and the real exchange rate as a relative price variable. However, such standard export equations have failed to explain the export performance of euro area countries during the crisis period. In...