One reason why countries service their external debts is the fear that default might lead to shrinkage of international trade. If so, then creditors should systematically lend more to countries with which they share closer trade links. We develop a simple theoretical model to capture this...

The huge amount of white elephants in East Germany suggests the search for a statistical figure for an "efficient" level of investment. Following the Mankiw/Romer/Weil (1992) augmented Solow model and the studies of Borensztein/Montiel (1992) and Thimann (1996) and applying the results of a...

Im Oktober 1998 befragte das ZEW rund 250 Finanzexperten aus Banken, Versicherungen, Kapitalanlagegesellschaften und großen Industrieunternehmen nach ihren Empfehlungen zur Gestaltung eines Vermögensportfolios zur Altersvorsorge. Dieses Papier untersucht in einem ersten Schritt, ob in...

This paper applies a pairwise approach to investigate the validity of the law of one price in the crude oil markets. Price differentials appear smaller between crude oil pairs with similar physical/chemical characteristics and also for pairs within OPEC.

This paper shows that a puzzling yet strong correlation exists between imports and exports. Cross-section and time-series analysis for the broadest possible country sample (159 countries over 1960-2006) attests to the robustness of this finding, even though causality is not explored in depth....