The full implications of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 are yet to be revealed. The crucial question is whether a crisis of such severe magnitude will set \"cleansing mechanisms\" into motion as suggested by the opportunity cost argument of R&D, or rather destroy the long-term...

In this paper we aim to analyse the level of sustainability of external debt and, more importantly, how it has changed for a number of European economies. Given the severity of the crisis since 2008, we argue that the path of external debt burdens may have changed since the start of the crisis,...

The paper investigates the interdependence of household financial liabilities and assets, with special focus on the impact of liabilities on households’ holdings of financial assets. The paper uses the new ECB Household Finance and Consumption Survey from 2009–2010 covering euro area...

Estonia changed over from the kroon to the euro in January 2011. This paper analyses the inflationary effect of this event. The analysis is based on the Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices. The difference-in-differences method is employed where the treated group is Estonia and the control...

This paper studies euro changeover-related inflation using disaggregated price level data. The difference-in-differences approach is used and the control group for the treatment country, Estonia, is built from 12 euro area countries. The Nielsen Company disaggregated price data are employed at...

This paper considers the relationship between domestic credit and foreign capital flows in the GIIPS countries before and after the outbreak of the global financial crisis. Cointegration analyses on the pre-crisis sample reveal that domestic credit and net foreign liabilities are cointegrated...

We study whether it is possible to find optimal hedge ratios for a foreign currency bond portfolio to lower significantly the risk and increase the risk adjusted return of a portfolio. The analysis is conducted from the perspective of euro area based investors to whom short-selling restrictions...

In this paper we contribute to the literature on the identification of macroeconomic shocks by proposing a Bayesian SVAR with timevarying volatility of innovations that depend on a hidden Markov process, referred to as an MS-SVAR. With sufficient statistical information in the data, the distinct...

This paper presents new evidence from a unique survey of firm managers on migration patterns in Estonia in 2007. An average emigrant from Estonia was most likely a young person between 15-34 years of age, a blue-collar worker and male. Contrary to evidence from other countries and/or earlier...

A growing literature is trying to analyse the productivity gap between domestic and foreign firms with differences in innovation indicators. In our paper we analyse the relationship between inward and outward FDI at either company or industry level and the innovation behaviour of companies in...