Regional economic development is driven by the accumulation of production factors. More traditional factors like labour and physical capital are accumulated under the law of diminishing returns. This, in turn, allows less developed regions to better perform. Recent branches of theoretical and...

This paper studies optimal time-consistent macroprudential policy in a model with endogenous capital formation. Previous studies on optimal time-consistent macroprudential policy in economies where borrowing is limited by the value of collateral assume that aggregate capital is fixed or apply...

The paper scrutinizes the role of wages and capital flows for competitiveness in the new EU member states in the context of real convergence. For this purpose it extends the seminal Balassa-Samuelson model by international capital markets. The augmented Balassa-Samuelson model is linked to the...

This paper studies the role of financial market imperfections in the way countries' exports react to a currency depreciation. Using quarterly data for 27 developed and developing countries over the period 1990-2005, we show that the impact of a depreciation will be less positive - or even...

As economic reforms are mutually interdependent, a liberal policy package needs internal coherence. How can a coherent reform strategy be achieved for a well-balanced and functional economic system? In this paper, we analyze the relationship between financial reforms coherence and international...

In the current debate on the reasons and implications of the Greek and Irish euro crisis, the intra-European current account imbalances have gained rising attention. Whereas Greece and Ireland struggle for austerity in private and public spending, Germany is urged to reduce its current account...

In the debate on global imbalances, the euro area countries did not receive much attention so far. While the current account is on balance for the entire area, divergences between individual member states have increased since the introduction of the common currency. In this paper, the imbalances...

This paper analyses the importance of German wage moderation in the context of European imbalances. Using information from a New Keynesian small open economy model with labor market frictions, we derive sign restrictions for a wage markup shock. This information enables us to identify a German...

We use changes in Brazil s tax on capital inflows from 2006 to 2011 to test for direct portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls on investor portfolios. The analysis is structured based on information from investor interviews. We find that an increase in Brazil s tax on foreign...

This paper studies the impact of the state-dependent risk of a government default on the correlation of the scal balance and current account. We use a small open economy model where nonlinear risk premia arise endogenously when the government operates close to its scal limit, i.e. the maximum...