This paper assesses the convergence in eco-efficiency of a group of 22 OECD countries over the period 1980-2005. In doing so, three air-pollutants representing the impact on the environment of economic activities are considered, namely, carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX) and sulphur...

Eco-efficiency refers to the ability to produce more goods and services with less impact on the environment and less consumption of natural resources. This issue has become a matter of concern that is receiving increasing attention by politicians, scientists and academics. Furthermore,...

This paper studies convergence in CO2 emission intensity (CO2 over GDP) among OECD countries over the period 1960-2008 based on its determinants, namely, energy intensity (energy consumption over GDP) and the so-called carbonisation index (CO2 emissions over energy consumption). We apply the...

A monetary union raises new economic questions about the interpretation and the implications of high current account de?cits for the economic performance of its members in the medium term. Recent literature has argued that conventional measures of external sustainability are misleading because...

Over the last 15 years, the evolution of labor costs has been very diverse across EMU countries. Since wages have important second-round effects on prices and competitiveness, and EMU countries do not have the tool of the nominal exchange rate to correct for such imbalances, understanding the...

We analyze imbalances in external accounts that have historically a¤ected most developed countries. The purpose of this study is to shed some light on the sus- tainability of the current account for a group of OECD countires by merging the popular Husted (1992) testing procedure with recent...

In this paper we unify the traditional approaches to testing for …s- cal sustainability considering the stock-ow system that …scal variables con…gure. Our approach encompasses previous ways of testing for sus- tainability. The results obtained for a group of 17 OECD countries point to weak...

External imbalances in the eurozone have become an issue of increased interest as an indicator of overall macroeconomic disequilibria. We focus on the euro-area countries with data available that has not been seasonally adjusted: Finland, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. We use periodic...

In this paper we present new evidence on the euro effect on trade. We use a data set containing all bilateral combinations in a panel of 26 OECD countries during the period 1967-2008. From a methodological point of view, we implement a new generation of tests that allow solving some of the...

This paper analyzes the external solvency of a group of 23 OECD countries for the period 1970-2012 The empirical strategy adopted underlines the increasing importance of the ?nancial channel for the external adjustment as proposed in Gourinchas and Rey (2007). We unify the traditional approaches...