This paper is an attempt to account for the empirical results of Krueger and Summers (1988) which suggest significant inter-industry wage differentials. We derive a dynamic efficiency wage model where firms use their wage policy to reduce turnover costs. Industry wages are shown to be a positive...

When foreign and domestic firms collude under free trade, a tariff can be pro-competitive because it drives a wedge between the interests of the firms. However, only if the firms meet in a small number of countries can a tariff be used to prevent international collusion. In the case in which a...

National labour market institutions interact across national boundaries when product markets are global. Labour market policies can thus entail spill-overs, a fact widely ignored in the academic literature. This paper studies the effects of wage subsidies in an international duopoly model with...

This paper explores the link between anticipated information and a preference for liquidity in investment choices. Given a subjective ordering of investment portfolios by their liquidity, we identify a sufficient condition under which the prospect of finer resolution of uncertainty creates a...

An output gap measure is suggested based on the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition of output using a vector-autoregressive model that includes data on actual output and on expected output obtained from surveys. The paper explains the advantages of using survey data in business cycle analysis and the...

Using high frequency data for the price dynamics of equities we measure the impact that market microstructure noise has on estimates of the: (i) volatility of returns; and (ii) variance-covariance matrix of n. assets. We propose a Kalman-filter-based methodology that allows us to deconstruct...

Financial intermediation and bank spreads are important elements in the analysis of business cycle transmission and monetary policy. We present a simple framework that introduces lending relationships, a relevant feature of financial intermediation that has been so far neglected in the monetary...

It has been widely argued that the production of illegal drugs, particularly cocaine, has financed guerrilla activity in Colombia. This paper uses quarterly time-series data for Colombia 1994-2005 to examine the interaction between legal agricultural production, illegal agricultural production...

We run a computerised experiment of network formation where all connections are beneficial and only direct links are costly. Players simultaneously submit link proposals; a connection is made only when both players involved agree. We use both simulated and experimentally generated data to test...