Using a panel of countries over 1990–2000, this paper examines the extent to which different dimensions of the institutional framework affect total exports, exports of manufactured goods, and exports of nonmanufactured goods. It is observed that exports of manufactured goods are positively...

We study optimal monetary policy in the presence of asymmetric wage indexation. We find that the monetary authorities do not react to small output shocks, and that their reaction to large shocks is asymmetric, insofar as they absorb positive shocks more than negative ones. As a consequence, we...

This article analyses the voting and abstention patterns in French departments in the 1992 referendum on the Maastricht treaty, in light of the potential impact of monetary union. We observe that departmental characteristics implying either greater benefits or lower costs from monetary union are...

This note reconsiders the results obtained by Matsen and Røisland [Eur. J. Political Economy 21 (2005) 365–384] by dropping the simplifying assumption that the median of country-specific shocks is equal to their mean. Majority voting then increases the volatility of the chosen interest rate...