Ireland experienced significant competitiveness gains in the 1990s on the basis of the standard manufacturing unit labour cost-based measure of the real effective exchange rate. A few sectors mostly dominated by multinational companies have accounted for the bulk of value added in production....

We revisit the dramatic failure of monetary models in explaining exchange rate movements. Using the information content from 98 countries, we find strong evidence for cointegration between nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals. We also find fundamentalsbased models very successful in...

Although negative shocks have persistent effects on output on average, this paper shows that macroeconomic policies and the structure of the economy can influence the speed of recovery and mitigate the persistence of the shock. Indeed, monetary and fiscal stimulus and foreign aid can spur a...

This paper investigates the extent to which output has recovered from the Asian crisis. A regime-switching approach that introduces two state variables is used to decompose recessions in a set of six Asian countries into permanent and transitory components. While growth recovered fairly quickly...

Sweden represents an archetypal welfare state economy, with extensive government safety nets. Some scholars have attributed a decline in its per capita income ranking since 1970 to ""eurosclerosis"" or sluggish growth caused by distortionary policies. This paper argues rather, that the permanent...

Is there a trade-off between raising growth and reducing inequality and poverty? This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the complex links between growth, inequality, and poverty, with causation going in both directions. The evidence suggests that growth can be effective...