We construct a measure of a bank’s relative creditworthiness from Eurosystem’s proprietary overnight loan data: the bank’s “average overnight borrowing rate spread, relative to overnight rate index” (AOR). We investigate the dynamic relationship between the AOR and the credit default...

In several recent studies unit root methods have been used in detection of financial bubbles in asset prices. The basic idea is that fundamental changes in the autocorrelation structure of relevant time series imply the presence of a rational price bubble. We provide cross-country evidence for...

This paper investigates the adjustment of employment to population shocks in 22 OECD countries over the period 1960–1997. Most of the countries have experienced significant population shocks during that period – due to migration and other reasons. We estimate the speed of adjustment...

The paper reviews some problems in financing the welfare state in the global economy. It is shown that in the new environment, there are several factors which create upward pressure in public expenditures even though the public sector would not extend its activities to now areas. On the other...

This paper develops a model of the relationship between public sector employment, total output and aggregate real demand in market prices, where public employment has a positive productivity effect on private output. Public employment crowds out private employment and output because its increase...

This paper deals with fiscal policy coordination under the Stability and Growth Pact. In particular, it addresses the question of how fiscal policy can be coordinated within EMU, where countries still differ considerably in terms of country-specific shocks and fiscal policy multipliers. To...

The purpose of the paper is to revisit the demand for money specifiections by using U.S. quarterly data over the sample period 1951:1 - 1983:4. Utilizing the so-called threshold models suggested by Tong and Lim (1980) we first demonstrate the unsatisfactory performance of standard linear partial...

This paper reports some policy experiments carried out with the QMED model of the Bank of Finland. The main issue in these experiments is the role of expectations. Thus, we compare a static expectations version with two rational expectations versions of the model. These two versions differ in...

This paper examines the question of whether budget deficits raise nominal interest rates. The empirical analyses make use of cross-country data from 16 countries covering the period 1924 - 1938 .. Contrary to some recent studies (by e.g. Evans), it turns out that budget deficits affect nominal...

This paper examines the determination of interest rates in small open economies. We use the classical interest rate parity relationships as a starting point in developing a test procedure which allows us to evaluate the importance of various domestic shocks (in particular, monetary and fiscal...