This paper deals with the fiscal behaviour of governments in the 1920s and 1930s. The intention is to see whether there were the same features in government behaviour as in the post-World War II era. In par-ticular, attention is paid to asymmetric fiscal policies, ie the question of whether...

Optimal currency area theory suggests that business cycle co-movement is a sufficient condition for monetary union, particularly if there are low levels of labour mobility between potential members of the monetary union. Previous studies of co-movement of business cycle variables found that...

The paper presents a structural model framework for a small open economy. The model, based on optimising households and firms, has been calibrated on Czech macroeconomic data in order to develop an analytic framework suitable for analysing key policy questions related to the Czech Republic’s...

The study assesses data communication requirements within the EU as it concerns Member State officials, EU bodies and the Community. A survey of current projects and their backgrounds is given. In addition the division of responsibilities among various bodies of the Commission are discussed....

This paper attempts to describe and compare developments in the components of Finland’s net international investment position (NIIP). The data consist of sectoral flows and valuation items over the period 1985 – 1998, which is, for analytical purposes, broken down into two subperiods: before...

This paper considers the effects of fiscal policy on private consumption in a framework that encompasses both the conventional (Keynesian) view of fiscal policy and the Ricardian debt neutrality hypothesis. The model is built on Blanchard's stochastic model of intertemporal optimization with...

This study shows that an expectations-based optimal policy rule has desirable properties in a standard macroeconomic model incorporating a cost channel for monetary disturbances and inflation rate expectations that are partly backward-looking. Specifically, optimal monetary policy under...

This paper analyses different operational central bank policies and their impact on the behaviour of the money market interest rate. The model combines profit maximising behaviour by commercial banks with the central bank supplying the liquidity that keeps the market rate on target. It seems...

The aim of this paper is to clarify the concept of alternative trading systems (ATS) and to present an interpretation of their role in the securities markets. The discussion focuses on trading venues related to debt instruments and equities. Geographically, the American and European markets are...

The paper investigates the existence and extent of economies of scale in depository and settlement systems. Evidence from 16 settlement institutions across different regions for the years 1993–2000 indicates the existence of significant economies of scale. The degree of such economies,...