The prevalent reinterpretations of the Great Inflation formulated in recent periods attribute the inflationist acceleration of the 1970s mainly to the fact that policymakers at the time based themselves on ‘mistaken’ economic ideas, above all the traditional Phillips curve. However, the...

The lack of cooperation between central banks is the most widely accepted interpretation of the collapse of the gold-exchange standard. This explanation does not take account of the evolution of systems of payment: national commodity moneys were progressively replaced by fiduciary money. These...

The stumbling-bloc argument asserts that regionalism hinders MFN tariff cutting. If this was of first-order importance over previous decades, we should detect this in the levels of the tariffs. Using tariff line data for 23 large trading nations we find that MFN and PTA tariffs are complements,...

This paper explores the growth implications of regional integration. From the theory, it identifies the ‘footprints’ that such growth should leave in the data. It then checks the data on the four poor EU nations for such footprints. Prima facie evidence for Ireland, Portugal and Spain...

This paper presents five theoretical openness-and-growth links that can account for trade-induced investment-led growth. The links are all demonstrated with neoclassical growth models developed in the context of trade models that allow for imperfect competition and scale economies. This sort of...

Simultaneous bank and exchange rate crises: the cases of Mexico (1994) and South-East Asian countries (1997) In recent years financial crises have been characterised by the simultaneous occurrence of exchange-rate and bank crises. This paper shows how, in a context of highly integrated...

In the period just after the Second World War, Italy experienced an increase in labour productivity bigger than the increase in real wages. The recurrent explanations of this phenomenon build on the weakness of labour trade unions due to a large “reserve industrial army”. With the passing of...

This paper presents five theoretical openness-and-growth links that can account for trade-induced investment-led growth. The links are all demonstrated with neoclassical growth models developed in the context of trade models that allow for imperfect competition and scale economies. This sort of...

This paper estimates a two equation system – an investment equation and a growth equation – that allows trade openness to affect growth directly via its impact on TFP growth, and indirectly via its impact on the investment rate. We find that domestic trade barriers depress investment and...