Information costs and regulatory barriers are the main distinguishing features of international financial markets as compared to national financial markets. This paper presents a simple model of the impact of these factors on banks' cross-border activities and provides empirical evidence. Our...

The prospects for labour supply in Europe are considered. The analysis begins with a so-called labour market balance covering the development on an aggregate level. Estimations to shed light on the relation between unemployment and labour force participation are given in the second part of the...

If the technological revolution which has taken place over the past decades has lowered information costs and if information costs increase in distance, distance should - ceteris paribus - become less important in determining international bank lending. We are using a dataset on assets and...

The process of European integration has gained considerable momentum during the past couple of years. This paper provides an assessment of the degree of integration of both the accession states of central and eastern Europe and of the pre-ins for monetary union with respect to Germany. Using...

A contingent claims valuation model which allows to highlight the implications of program trading in spot markets for the pricing of European-style foreign currency options and for the volatility strike structure implicit in these contracts is devoloped. The curvature of the volatility strike...

Die internationale Diskussion der letzten Jahrzehnte hat zur Frage nach einer effizienten Gestaltung der Einkommenssicherung von Arbeitslosen eine Reihe von Vorschlägen hervorgebracht, wie die von Beenstock/Brasse, Feldstein /Altman, Grubel und Orzag/Snower. Sie werden dargestellt und bewertet....