Virtual currencies are a contemporary form of private money. Thanks to their technological properties, their global transaction networks are relatively safe, transparent, and fast. This gives them good prospects for further development. However, they remain unlikely to challenge the dominant...

Central bank lender of last resort (LOLR) regimes are the last line of defence before governments are forced to resort to taxpayer-funded bailouts of the financial system. Yet despite this important role, along with a rich theoretical literature examining the function and design of LOLR regimes,...

Virtual currencies are a contemporary form of private money. Thanks to their technological properties, their global transaction networks are relatively safe, transparent, and fast. This gives them good prospects for further development. However, they remain unlikely to challenge the dominant...

Economists have long debated the relationship of bank credit to the business cycle. The attribution of economic cycles to the "inherent instability" of fractional-reserve banking has been advanced not only by Austrian scholars in the tradition of Murray Rothbard, but also by a number of...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP). It explores the relationship between sovereign bond yields spreads and the variables contained in the MIP scoreboard using quantile regressions. Results suggest that MIP indicators can explain the behavior...

During the 20th century all economic structures underwent the impact of two epochal phenomena, the communications revolution and the financialization of economy. As a consequence of the never ending technological progress, the first has repeatedly reduced the friction of distance, provoking a...

This paper compares relative unit labour cost developments in the countries of the euro-area since the beginning of the European Monetary Union (EMU) both with historical developments and with intra-regional unit labour cost developments in the United States of America and Germany. To this end,...

This study examines a real case scenario using real data under the assumption of a long-term investment horizon. We examine the Dollar Cost Average, Cost Average Plan (CAP) in our case, and attempt to ascertain whether it could prove beneficial for an investor that does not have a significant...

This paper studies the specificities of the regulation of shadow banking in the EU. It argues that the idiosyncratic features of the EU shadow banking sector call for a different (or indigenized) regulatory approach from that of the U.S. It highlights striking differences between the EU and the...

This article analyzes the regulatory measures adopted to address the potential contribution of hedge funds to financial instability in the U.S. and the EU in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. The relevant provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act include two sets of direct regulatory measures. The...