The implementation of the Maastricht criteria, establishment of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), creation of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) raised several challenges for the European Union (EU) countries. The main aim of this dissertation is to...

Australia had one of the highest per capita incomes in the world in the late nineteenth century, although this exceptional position subsequently eroded over time. This paper compares national income and sectoral labour productivity in Australia and the UK between 1861 and 1948 to uncover the...

In the early stages of the process of industry evolution, firms are financially constrained and might pay different wages if workers have heterogeneous expectations about the prospects for advancement offered by each firm's job ladder. This paper argues that, nevertheless, if the output market...

This thesis wants to contribute to the understanding of the role of collective beliefs and incomplete information in the analysis of the dynamics of inequality, growth and redistributive politics. Extensive evidence shows that the difference in the political support for redistribution appears to...

The objective of this work is to theoretically evaluate an important aspect of a Newly Industrializing Country (NICs): Korea. Namely, the behaviour of firms in Korea competing with firms in an industrialized country after all Government intervention of the former is withdrawn. This aspect is...

The thesis consists of three chapters of self-contained empirical studies. In Chapter 1, we examine long-run and short-run dynamics of US real trade balance with Canada. In addition to the linear error-correction model, the Markov-switching error-correction model is employed, using quarterly...

Investors who are more willing to accept risks when evaluating their investments less frequently are said to exhibit myopic loss aversion (MLA). Several recent experimental studies found that, on average, subjects bet significantly higher amounts on a risky lottery when they observe only a...

This thesis examines whether two well documented financial market anomalies - the "Mehra & Prescott puzzles" and the dividend controversy - can be resolved by allowing for the effects of uninsurable risks. The dissertation contains an extensive review of the theory of consumption based asset...

The first paper, "Interest rate pass-through and financial crises: do switching regimes matter? The case of Argentina", analyses the dynamic relationship between a money market (interbank) rate and different short-term lending rates by measuring their passthrough. Neither linear single-equation...

In the early 70's, Harrison and Stevens made a major contribution to the area of statistical forecasting. They adopted a Bayesian approach in conjunction with a fundamental model, first used by Kalman and called the Dynamic Linear Model (DLM). This thesis is concerned with the investigation of...