Following the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008, SACU member countries have witnessed a significant growth slowdown, and a deterioration of their fiscal balances. This paper (i) assesses options for the design of the needed fiscal consolidation, and (ii) discussed medium-term fiscal...

Following the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008, SACU member countries have witnessed a significant growth slowdown, and a deterioration of their fiscal balances. This paper (i) assesses options for the design of the needed fiscal consolidation, and (ii) discussed medium-term fiscal...

Does distance matter for the volatility of international real and financial transactions? We show that it does, in addition to its well-established relevance for the level of trade. A simple model of trade with endogenous markups shows that demand shocks have a larger impact on trade between...

We show that distance matters for the volatility of international trade and financial transactions beyond its well-known relevance for their level. We identify several candidate explanations from theory, which we test on alternative measures of distance and a broad range of trade and financial...

We show that distance matters for the volatility of international trade and financial transactions beyond its well-known relevance for their levels. We consider alternative measures of distance and estimate their impact on a broad range of trade and financial transactions volatility to test...