Although age is not supposed to be a criterion for the award of the Nobel Prize, it is commonly believed that it does play a role. Indeed, econometric evidence in this paper also suggests such a role. However, the paper finds that, if there is a preference for older Nobel candidates, this is...

This paper evaluates inflation targeting and assesses its merits by comparing alternative targets in a macroeconomic model. We use European aggregate data to evaluate the performance of alternative policy rules under alternative inflation targets in terms of output losses. We employ two major...

The theoretical literature has argued that a centralized wage bargaining system may result in low regional wage differentiation and high regional unemployment differentials. The empirical literature has found that centralized wage bargaining leads to lower wage inequality for different skills,...

This paper attempts to quantify the extent to which U.S. growth is an “engine” of the world economy. Results based on fixed-effects estimation using panel data suggest a significant positive impact of U.S. growth on growth in the rest of the world, especially developing countries, in recent...

This paper attempts to quantify the extent to which U.S. growth is an “engine” of the world economy. Results based on fixed-effects estimation using panel data suggest a significant positive impact of U.S. growth on growth in the rest of the world, especially developing countries, in recent...

This paper constructs a new measure of currency mismatch in the banking sector that controls for bank lending to unhedged borrowers. This measure explicitly takes into account the indirect exchange rate risk that banks undertake when they lend to borrowers that will not be able to repay in the...

Recent literature argues that conflict in shifting adjustment costs between different socioeconomic groups delays necessary reforms and finds that such reforms often follow economic crises. This paper expands these models by including external borrowing by the private sector and shows that this...