Recent empirical and theoretical literature on the impact of real exchange rate devaluations on economic performance questions the traditional expansionary effect generated within standard Mundell-Fleming models. Contractionary devaluations may arise when firms face maturity or currency...

What is a 'sustainable nation’ and how can we identify and rank ‘sustainable nations’? Are nations producing and consuming in a sustainable way? Aggregate indicators have been proposed to answer these questions. This paper quantitatively compares three aggregate indicators of...

We analyze the distribution of economic activity across space for different types of activity and different levels of aggregation. Not only is this distribution highly uneven (independently of the type of activity and level of aggregation), it is also remarkably regular regarding its size...

This paper presents estimates of world output growth from 1970 to 2000, the distribution of income among countries and persons for the years 1980, 1990 and 2000, and world poverty rates for the same years. It also presents the results of a series of simulation exercises that attempt isolate the...

This paper considers the general equilibrium relationship between exchange rates and global imbalances. It emphasizes that the exchange rate is not a primitive but an equilibrium price determined by the policy mix. It uses extensions of the two-country Obstfeld-Rogoff model to analyze the...

This paper provides a stylized model of the workings of a global economy where one of its key driving factors is economic agents' continuous struggle to find assets in which to park financial resources. This struggle naturally comes with euphoria and disappointments, as many of the "parking...

We have to consider that natural laws dictate all aspects of our life. These are the First and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is therefore necessary to look into details of this fact in order to avoid making mistakes redarding the future life of mankind. To violate these laws could have...

We provide, for the first time, comparative evidence of the impact of various types of extreme events – natural disasters, terrorism, and violent conflicts – on the perceptions of entrepreneurs concerning some key entrepreneurial issues – such as fear of failure in starting a business...

This paper extends the Dincer and Eichengreen (2007) index of central bank transparency. Improvements in transparency are notable in Central and Eastern Europe, while the index has shown much smaller rises in most other parts of the world. The pattern observed by Dincer and Eichengreen,...

Orthodox and heterodox theories of financial crises are hereby compared from a theoretical viewpoint, with emphasis on their genesis. The former view (represented by the fourth generation models of Paul Krugman) reflects the neoclassical vision whereby turbulence is an exception; the latter...