This paper generates monthly risk premia data using zero coupon government treasury bills for 43 countries over the period of 1994-2006. The measure of risk premia is based on the ARCH-in-Mean (ARCH-M) model introduced by Engle, Lilien and Robins (1987). We show that the risk premia are time...

This paper derives a Phillips curve with imported commodities as an additional input in the production process. Given greater reliance on exogenously priced imported commodities in production then changes in output lead to a reduced impact on marginal costs and prices. The Phillips curve becomes...

This paper modifies the menu-cost model that Ball and Mankiw (1995) put forward to explain the correlation between the first- and higher-moments of the distribution of US price changes by allowing for non-zero trend inflation. Simulations suggest that even if trend inflation is only mildly...

We collect and analyse data on church collections to assess whether the introduction of Euro notes and coins had real effects on giving. Data for Italy suggests that money is not completely neutral while Irish data suggests a lower degree of money illusion.

This note addresses some issues that arise when using 'normalized' CES production functions, an approach that has become popular in the literature. The results of Klump and de La Grandville (2000) provide a simple way to calibrate the parameters of the CES production function when the necessary...

The economic boom of the USA in the 1990s was remarkable in its duration, the sustained rise in equipment investment, the reduced volatility of productivity growth, and continued uncertainty about the trend growth rate. In this paper we link these phenomena using an extension of the classic...

We analyze the impact of ideology on the size of government. In a simple model the government sets redistribution and provision of public services according to the preferences of the median voter, for whom private consumption is a necessity. Ideology is defined on preferences for public services...

This paper asks if and how constitutions affect labour market outcomes. This question is motivated by Rodrik (1999), who suggests that 'democracies pay higher wages' and Persson and Tabellini (2003) who provide evidence that constitutions impact on economic outcomes. An empirical analysis using...

Patents act as an incentive to innovate. However, as this paper argues, patents can lead the patent holder to rest on his laurels and at the same time discourage some innovators from innovating, reducing knowledge spillovers. The combined result of the above suggests an inverse U relationship...

Projected large changes in demographic profiles of developed countries over the next fifty years have led to increasing interest in the relationship between population structure and macroeconomic performance. Because demographic changes tend to be very slow, empirical analysis requires long time...