This paper analyses how to extract market expectations from asset prices, with a particular example: using the term structure of interest rates to estimate the probability the market attaches to the event that a country, Italy, joins the European Monetary Union at a given date. The extraction of...

The current account has always been a neglected variable in the management of the Euro area and in the assessment of its members' performance; so has, as a consequence, the savings-investment balance. This paper first reviews the arguments that explain this attitude and justify, under some...

Financial systems are inherently fragile because of the very function which makes them valuable: liquidity transformation. Thus regulatory reforms, as urgent and desirable as they are, will definitely strengthen the financial system and decrease the risk of liquidity crises, but they will never...

University tuition typically remains constant throughout years of enrollment while delayed degree completion is an increasing problem for many academic institutions around the world. Theory suggests that if continuation tuition were raised the probability of late graduation would be reduced....

We study whether cultural attitudes towards gender, the young, and leisure are significant determinants of the evolution over time of the employment rates of women and of the young, and of hours worked in OECD countries. Beyond controlling for a larger menu of policies, institutions and...

This paper uses German micro data and a quasi-natural experiment to provide new evidence on the empirical importance of precautionary savings. Our quasi-natural experiment draws on a sharp increase in uncertainty (as reported in a survey of German citizens) observed in the run-up to the 1998...