There has been a long debate about whether speculators are stabilizing or not. We consider a model where speculators have a stabilizing role in normal times, but may also provoke large risk panics. The very feature that makes arbitrageurs liquidity providers in normal times, namely their...

This paper constitutes an attempt to reframe and eventually deflate the ongoing 'compliance-vs.-rebalancing' debate which has permeated WTO scholarship for the last 10 years. Our main criticism concerns the substance of the entire debate. We find that scholars on both sides of the...

This paper focuses on the observed empirical relationship between fiscal rules and budget deficits, and examines whether this correlation is driven by an omitted variable, namely voter preferences. We make use of two different estimation methods to capture voter preferences in a panel of Swiss...

This paper develops a macroeconomic framework where the representative bank is owned by inside and outside owners and copes with capital requirements that vary countercyclically. The issuance of outside equity is characterized getting insights from the literature on corporate governance,...

This paper examines how attractive investment opportunities available to temporary migrants in their country of origin affect their saving behavior and the optimal duration of stay abroad. The model predicts an inverse U-shaped relationship between migration duration and the expected rate of...

This paper develops an open economy firm-heterogeneous model where the combination of market rigidities and exchange rate uncertainty acts like a barrier to trade and modifies a firm's optimal choice in terms of production and pricing. The existence of price and labor rigidities, coupled with...

This paper is a contribution to the literature on rational design of trade agreements. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an incomplete contract among sovereign states. Incomplete contracts contain gaps. Ex post, contractual gaps may leave gains from trade unrealized; they may create 'regret'...

Geographical Indications (GIs) for products (Basmati rice, Champagne sparkling wine, Antigua coffee, etc.) were regulated at the international level in 1995 (WTO TRIPS Agreement, Part II, Section 3). This paper proposes a model on the welfare effects of the socalled claw-back of GIs; i.e. the...

We analyse the impact of relaxing rules of origin (ROOs) in a simple setting with heterogeneous firms that buy intermediate inputs from domestic and foreign sources. In particular, we consider the impact of switching from bilateral to diagonal cumulation when using preferences (instead of paying...

This paper discusses fiscal policy using a DSGE model with search and matching in the labour market. Fiscal policy is effective mainly via its impact through the labour market. Although public intervention tends to crowd out private consumption, public spending also improves the matching between...