This paper presents evidence that the spread between the marginal product of capital and the return on financial assets is mich higher in poor than in rich countries. A model with costly intermediation is developed. In this economy, individuals choose at each instant whether to work or to...

This paper reviews the theory of foreign direct investment (FDI), focusing on an apparent con‡ict between theory and recent trends in the globalized world. The bulk of FDI is horizontal rather than vertical, but horizontal FDI is discouraged when trade costs fall. This seems to conflict with...

Die wirtschaftliche Lage des Nord-Ostsee-Kanals ist durch eine fortlaufende Abnahme der Zahl der Passagen und eine Verminderung der abgabenpflichtigen Schiffstonnage gekennzeichnet; die durch den Kanal beförderte Ladungsmenge schwankt etwa um das Niveau von 1970. Der ungünstige Trend hat...

In this paper we analyse the employment implications of firing restrictions. We find that when a recession is expected and the trend rate of productivity growth is small, a rise in firing costs affects mainly the hiring decision. Thus there is a negative effect on average employment. When, on...

Empirical analyses of Cagan?s money demand schedule for hyper-inflation have largely ignored the explosive nature of hyper-inflationary data. It is argued that this contributes to an (i) inability to model the data to the end of the hyper-inflation, and to (ii) discrepancies between ?estimated?...

The impact of uncertainty on firms' investment outlays is subject to an ongoing debate. Theory identifies several channels. Irreversibility, financing constraints and risk aversion make a negative relationship between uncertainty and investment likely. On the other hand, the ability of firms to...

Most bank efficiency studies that use stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) employ each bank's own implicit input price when estimating efficient frontiers. But the theoretical foundation of most studies is a cost minimisation and/ or profit maximisation problem assuming perfect input markets. At...

The present paper investigates the neglected topic of budgeting rules for public bureaucracies performing governmental activities within predetermined budgets under rules governing expenditure levels and composition. We analyze the optimal budgeting scheme, if the bureaucracy has superior...

When calculating the cost of entering into a credit transaction the predominant stochastic component is the expected loss. Often in the credit business the one-year probability of default of the liable counterpart is the only reliable parameter. We use this probability to calculating the exact...