The paper looks at the evidence on the widespread hypothesis in the academic literature and by some of the new Member States' governments that accession will bring about fiscal strains and requires higher budget deficits. It starts by calculating the expected new Member States' payments from the...

This paper presents a set of simulation experiments using the European Commission's QUEST model to evaluate the effects of policy impulses and permanent supply side shocks in the four major EU economies. The simulation analysis illustrates the transmission mechanisms of specific monetary and...

This paper presents a model of a multinational firm's optimal debt policy that incorporates international taxation factors. The model yields the prediction that a multinational firm's indebtedness in a country depends on a weighted average of national tax rates and differences between national...

The paper assesses the advisability of subregional monetary integration in Latin America by looking at EU experience with EMU and by applying the theory of optimum currency areas as well as other criteria proposed by the more recent literature. It also discusses the extent to which EU fiscal...

The study reviews various approaches applied in computing net replacement rates for the unemployed. Until now, there have been relatively new comparative studies on net replacement rates. Most of them are based on simulation calculations for a set of stylised households. The stylised calculation...

This report discusses the cost and benefits of running an international currency. It starts by discussing the effect of the euro's internationalization on financial markets, and presents data on the impact of the single currency on private credit. It considers recent work on the effect of the...

This paper discusses the reasoning behind the exchange rate policies set out in the Maastricht Treaty of the European Union. The question of the appropriate exchange rate policies for new member states of the EU should be seen from the wider perspective of Economic and Monetary Union, and the...

Domestic-currency invoicing and hedging allow internationally active firms to reduce their exposure to exchange rate variations. This paper argues that domestic-currency invoicing and hedging with exchange rate derivatives allow a fairly straightforward management of transaction and translation...

Most OECD countries have experienced a sharp reduction in the volatility of output and inflation over the past three decades. Although this Great Moderation process has stirred considerable interest in economic and policy circles, research on its causes has so far tended to focus on the US...

QUEST was designed to analyse the economies in the Member States of the European Union and their interaction with the rest of the world. The paper presents a new version of the QUEST model which is now considerably modified with respect to its theoretical structure. It first presents a model...