We develop a simple two-region, cobweb-type dynamic equilibrium model to demonstrate the existence of optimal trade barriers. A pure comparative statics analysis of our model suggests that a reduction of trade barriers always enhances welfare. However, taking a dynamic perspective reveals that...

Environmental policy instruments have an impact on the incentives to invest in environmental R&D and this link should deserve careful consideration when introducing new instruments. Some authors argue that environmental taxes and tradable permits have rather comparable impacts on environmental...

We develop a partial equilibrium model in which firms can locate in two separate regions. A firm's decision where to locate in a given period depends on the regions' relative profitability. If firms react strongly to the regions' relative profitability, their market switching behavior generates...

We develop a model in which investors can participate in stock, bond and housing markets. Investors' market entry decisions are subject to herding effects and depend on the markets' price trends and on their mispricings. The dynamics of our model is governed by a four-dimensional nonlinear map...

We infer determinants of Latin American hyperinflations and stabilizations by using the method of maximum likelihood to estimate a hidden Markov model that potentially assigns roles both to fundamentals in the form of government deficits that are financed by money creation and to destabilizing...

The idea of positive educational externalities is that the benefits of individually acquired education may not be restricted to the individual but might spill over to others as well, accruing at higher aggregation levels, in particular at the macro-economic one. We offer an extensive summary and...

This paper describes a method for solving a class of forward-looking Markov-switching Rational Expectations models under noisy measurement, by specifying the unobservable expectations component as a general-measurable function of the observable states of the system, to be determined optimally...

We verify whether cocoa prices could be a source of inflation in five countries of the West African region within a framework that includes other variables such as migrant remittances to the region and a fiscal policy variable represented by the government budget deficit. Unlike earlier studies...

The theory suggests that investment activities and monetary policy influence the development of the global business cycle. The oil price and other raw material prices also play a key role in the economic development and there is a co-movement among oil consumption and global output. Therefore,...

Das Papier untersucht die Rolle von Frühindikatoren bei der Erstellung von Konjunkturprognosen. Gegenstand der Analyse sind die Fragen: Welche Kriterien sollten Frühindikatoren generell erfüllen bzw. was sollten Frühindikatoren leisten? Inwieweit erfüllen die gängigen Indikatoren diese...