This paper shows that the EMU has not affected historical characteristics of member countries' business cycles and their cross-correlations. Member countries which had similar levels of GDP per-capita in the seventies have also experienced similar business cycles since then and no significant...

What are the economic mechanisms that account for sudden growth spurts? Are these mechanisms similar across episodes? Focusing on the economic resurgence of the BRICs over the last decade, we employ the Business Cycle Accounting methodology developed by Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan (2007) to...

This paper presents a discussion of the forces at play behind the economic fluctuations in the medium run and their relation with the short-run macroeconomic equilibrium. The business cycle is the result of two separate phenomena. On the one hand, there is the instability caused by the...

Lack of commitment in monetary policy leads to the well known Barro-Gordon inflation bias. In this paper, we argue that two phenomena associated with the time inconsistency problem have been overlooked in the exchange rate debate. We show that, absent commitment, independent monetary policy can...

This paper shifts the perspective of the recent green paradox literature towards the demand side. Based on a simple model, I show that a subsidy on input factors in a Cobb-Douglas production function may contribute substantially to postponing resource extraction into the future and, thereby, to...

We investigate the effect of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on the economic performance of manufacturing firms in Germany. Our difference-in-differences framework relies on several parametric conditioning strategies and nearest neighbor matching. As a measure of economic...

We investigate the effect of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on the economic performance of manufacturing firms in Germany. Our difference-in-differences framework relies on several parametric conditioning strategies and nearest neighbor matching. As a measure of economic...

The European Union (EU) advocates a plastic waste recycling rate of more than 55% through home separation by households. Even for the Netherlands, which has already invested heavily in plastic recycling policies, there is still a challenge to meet this target. We show that post separation is an...

This paper uses a transaction cost approach in order to classify the different policy options that are currently discussed in relation to the Kyoto protocol. It analyses the market as only one of the possible collective decision making processes, which are available to operationalize the concept...

The total expected cost of sequestering carbon in agricultural soils is estimated under different government-based and market-based policies. A possible government-based EQIP programme offering a per-acre subsidy to adopt conservation tillage and a market-based carbon credit programme where...