In this note we summarize our recent paper, where we delved into the details of this apple-to-oranges problem with the aim of defining a minimum common ground. We begin our analysis by explicitly documenting the kinds of measures that are construed as capital controls. Along the way, we describe...

Basel III classifies government debt as risk free while actual interest rates in the European Union (EU) show large differences not only because of liquidity but mainly because of the risk of default, as also reflected in credit default swaps. Curiously such debt defaults may not happen so that...

The 2007+ credit crunch and economic crisis put European governments in severe debt, with talk about a Greek partial default. It also put the European banks into a zombie condition, while under Basel III the capital requirement rises from 8% to 10.5% (which requirement does not cover public debt...

The rules of the Eurozone cause the euro to function as the gold standard. The US economy performs better in some respects, partly because of the advantages of fiat money. The treaty on the EMU has to be adapted in order not to become dependent upon current ad hoc measures, with the loss of...

The welfare state was created after 1950 with counterproductive mechanisms and this caused high inflation and high unemployment and stagnating growth by 1970, called stagflation. Since 1970 governments redressed the welfare state but did not succeed in finding workable mechanisms. They rather...

The "traditional structural approach" to determining real commodity prices has relied exclusively on demand factors as the fundamentals that explain commodity prices. This framework, however, has been unable to explain the sustained weakness in commodity prices in the 1980s and 1990s. This paper...

This paper represents a neoclassical model that explains the observed empirical relationship between government spending and world commodity supplies and the real exchange rate and real commodity prices. It is shown that fiscal expansion and increasing world commodity supplies simultaneously...

The U.S recession of 2007 to 2009 is unique in the post-World-War-II experience by the broad company it kept. Activity contracted around the world, with the advanced countries of the North experiencing declines in spending normally the purview of the developing economies of the South. The last...

This study documents a quantitative analysis of exchange rate volatilities and misalignment in Uzbekistan for the period of 1994q3–2005q2. The results suggest thatthe real exchange rate volatility and misalignment have depressing effects on the volume of trade, mainly exports in Uzbekistan....