The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) was established to promote the exports of low-income countries to industrialized countries in order to support their economic growth and development. However, the design of these schemes is rather complex and the effects of GSP have been found to be...

The well-known question whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trading system (MTS) are "strangers, friends, or foes" (Bhagwati and Panagariya, 1996) has gained new importance with the widespread proliferation of RTAs in recent years. Based on an extensive data set which...

World trade has grown exponentially during the last 60 years. Admittedly, it is not clear if this development can be assigned to international trade agreements like the World Trade Organization or the Generalized System of Preferences as previous empirical studies found contradicting results. In...

This paper presents a proposal for a regulatory regime aimed at reducing systemic risk effectively and internationally. Systemic relevance should be internalized with a levy (or "tax"), the level of which (or "tax rate") rises with the systemic relevance of an institution (Pigouvian taxation)....

Im folgenden soll die währungspolitischen Konsequenzen alternativer Wege zur EWU untersucht werden. Der Übergang vom EWS zur EWU wird modelliert als eine Abfolge von Wechselkursregimen, die sich in den Merkmalen Symmetrie, Flexibilität der Wechselkurse und Bindewirkung des Devisenkonstraints...

The paper discusses the stabilizing potential of fiscal policy in a dynamic general-equilibrium model of monetary union. We consider a small open economy inside the currency area. We analyze the demand and supply effects of direct taxation, indirect taxation and government spending and derive...

In the literature on currency and banking crises it has become the standard procedure to distinguish pure currency crises, pure banking crises and combined ("twin") currency and banking crises. We show theoretically and empirically that a similar differentiation should be chosen with regard to...

This paper develops a market-based approach to implement so called Eurobonds, i.e. common sovereign debt securities of European Monetary Union (EMU) countries. By applying an asset-backed security (ABS) approach positive implications of a common bond can be achieved and negative incentives (e.g....