How much does a nation spend on resources to 'grease the wheels of trade'? To examine this question the Dutch economy is used as an exemplary case as the Netherlands are known as a nation of traders. This image was derived in the seventeenth century from successes in long distance trade,...

This chapter surveys the literature on housing in macroeconomics. We first collect facts on house prices and quantities in both the time series and the cross section of households and housing markets. We then present a theoretical model of frictional housing markets with heterogeneous agents...

Are housing prices predictable? If so, do households take into account it when making their portfolio choices? We document the existence of housing returns predictability in the US at the aggregate and regional level. We study a model, in which housing prices are predictable and adjustment costs...

Nominal shocks have long lasting effects on real economic activity, beyond those implied by the average frequency of price adjustment in micro data. This paper develops a price-setting model that explains this gap through the interplay of menu costs and uncertainty about productivity....

This paper analyzes de-facto integration in some Emerging Market Economies based on behavior of deviations from Covered Interest Parity in the last decade. An Asymmetric Self Exciting Threshold Autoregressive model is used to estimate bands of speculative inaction. The estimated bands follow the...

The use of different currencies in the invoicing of international trade transactions plays a major role in the international transmission of economic fluctuations. Existing studies argue that an exporter’s invoicing choice reflects structural aspects of its industry, such as market share and...

The use of different currencies in the invoicing of international trade transactions plays a major role in the international transmission of economic fluctuations. Existing studies argue that an exporter's invoicing choice reflects structural aspects of its industry, such as market share and the...

We put together a unique panel of thousands of good-level prices before and after the euro in order to compare the determinants and understand the evolution of goods price dispersion across Europe over time. We find that tradeability and non-traded inputs play a significantly smaller role for...

This paper analyzes de-facto integration in some Emerging Market Economies based on behavior of deviations from Covered Interest Parity in the last decade. An Asymmetric Self Exciting Threshold Autoregressive model is used to estimate bands of speculative inaction. The estimated bands follow the...

A common distinction in political economy contrasts the dynamics of free markets with the ‘political’ dynamics of governance. That distinction portrays ‘economic’ competition as separate from the deployment of private political resources to affect the terms of competition in line with...