In this paper, I will discuss this question with special emphasis on the European experience. The European Union (EU) qualifies for an interesting case study because of two reasons. First, it has been founded more than 40 years ago in 1957. Second, its ongoing process of deep Integration is...

Carbon leakage provides an efficiency argument for unilateral climate policy to differentiate emission prices in favor of emission-intensive and trade-exposed sectors. At the same time, differential emission pricing can be (mis-)used as a beggar-thy-neighbor policy to exploit terms of trade....

Recent theoretical work has shown that the incidence of ad valorem and specific taxes may differ and each may be over or under-shifted onto consumers in the presence of imperfect competition. Empirical comparison of the price effects of the two taxes is limited. There are no previous estimates...

Recent theoretical work has shown that the incidence of ad valorem and specific taxes may differ and each may be over or under-shifted onto consumers in the presence of imperfect competition. These results are used to derive a method of estimating market power and conduct. An application is made...

This paper applies the panel unit root test proposed by Im, Pesaran and Shin (1997) to test for unemployment hysteresis in the US states and the EU countries against the alternative of a natural rate. The results show that hysteresis for the EU and the natural rate for the US states are the most...

Over the last several years debate over monetary policy has focused on two issues, inflation targeting and asset price bubbles. This paper explores the case for explicitly targeting asset price bubbles, a policy that the Federal Reserve Bank has opposed on the grounds that it is both infeasible...

This paper analyses the effects of commodity price shocks in a new Keynesian model. The focus is on the central bank's choice of inflation target and the degree of real wage rigidity. It turns out that using core inflation rather than headline inflation is the superior strategy. Targeting...

It is generally held, from both a global and a European perspective, that the three most impor-tant objectives for the years to come are 1) the reduction of current account imbalances, 2) the reduction of public deficits, and 3) the reduction of unemployment. This paper argues that the Stability...