Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether futures markets play a dominant role in the price discovery process. The rate of convergence of information from one market to another is analyzed to infer the efficiency of futures as an effective hedging tool....

This paper aims to conduct a precise test of the political economy hypothesis linking income inequality and economic growth. By choosing covariates from a detailed county-level dataset and assuming that U.S. counties experience perfect capital mobility, I shut off the four possible channels...

This book is the first of its kind to systematically analyze and apply Lim Chong Yah's S-Curve Hypothesis to the various facets of economic growth and economic transition. By augmenting the mathematical and economical sophistication of the hypothesis, this book extends the S-Curve hypothesis to...

This paper provides an analysis of absolute economic convergence among the group of ten new member states (NMS-10) that entered European Union in the year 2004. Convergence dynamics is estimated for the period from 1997 to 2012 as well as for two sub-periods: 1997-2007 and 2007-2012. The...

The staff report for the 2008 Article IV Consultation of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia discusses economic developments and policies. The new government’s economic program aims to raise growth further, but does not address these vulnerabilities. Plans to increase the central...

We show that in a fully integrated economy, in which there is free mobility of goods and factors, each member’s share of total output will equal its shares of total stocks of productive factors (i.e., physical and human capital). We label this result the equal-share relationship. This...

This paper presents the issue of economic convergence, reviewing some of the theories used in analyzing this process, theories of economic growth, types of economic convergence: nominal, real and institutional convergence, the effects of the recent crisis on economic convergence. The programme...

Purpose – The financial crisis starting in 2008 made many European countries opt for a change of exchange rate regime. The choice of price measure as an entry requirement to the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and as input in the monetary policy decision process re-appeared as an...