Does trade openness systematically imply bigger governments, as proposed by Rodrik (1998)? This paper presents a novel and more refined explanation for when and why international trade may enlarge the public sector. We propose that trade openness is associated with bigger governments if (i) the...

This paper analyzes the relationship between bilateral trade flows, trade openness, and asset holdings in a three-country stochastic general equilibrium model. The threecountry model set-up enables me to disentangle and separate the effects bilateral trade flows and trade openness have on...

From a theoretical point of view, greater trade openness affects firm-level volatility by changing the exposure and the reaction of firms to macroeconomic shocks. The net effect is ambiguous, though. This paper provides firm-level evidence on the link between openness and volatility. Using two...

Using a dataset of 101 countries over the 1960-2011 period, we examine the relationship between the real effective exchange rate (REER), on the one hand, and trade openness, trade balance, the terms of trade, factor productivity, and exchange rate regime, on the other one. We use new econometric...

Openness for trade can have positive welfare effects in terms of higher growth. But increased openness may also increase uncertainty through a higher volatility of employment. We use regional data from Germany to test whether openness for trade has an impact on volatility. We find a downward...

Whether countries benefit from forming a monetary union depends critically on the way monetary policy is conducted. This is mainly because monetary policy determines whether and to what extent a flexible nominal exchange rate fosters or hampers macroeconomic stabilization, even if monetary...

Government is often considered the safe sector of an open economy that provides households with insurance against external risk exposure. Among highly integrated economies, however, households should be able to exploit common financial markets to insure themselves. In this paper we examine the...

Empirical evidence for the compensation hypothesis holds that trade openness independent of income risk has no significant effects on government size. Hence, using time series data for the period 1965-2013 from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa and applying the bounds test method of...

The real interest partity (RIP) condition combines two cornerstones in international finance, uncovered interest parity (UIP) and ex ante purchasing power parity (PPP). The extent of deviation from RIP is therefore an indicator of the lack of product and financial market integration. This paper...

Using data for El Salvador and Bayesian techniques, we develop and estimate a two-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of remittances in emerging market economies. We find that, whether altruistically motivated or otherwise, an increase in remittance flows...