This paper examines whether the behaviour of the real exchange rate is associated with a particular regime for the nominal exchange rate, like fixed and flexible exchange rate arrangements. The analysis is based on 16 annual real exchange rates and covers a long time span, 1870-2006. Four...

With its resource availability and the prospect of climate friendly technology, coal continues to play an important role in the global energy sector. We develop a complementarity model of the international market for steam coal. We want to analyze the level of competition in this market which is...

We estimate and analyze the global income distribution from national log-normal income distributions for the years 1970 to 2003, as well as the income distribution of seven regional subsamples. From these distributions we obtain measures for global and regional inequality and poverty, and find...

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and...

Housing crises usually go hand in hand with a long lasting recession and a considerable loss in output. We first re-examine the effects of a housing crises on the business cycle based on historical crises. Then we estimate the international spill-over-effects if several huge industrial countries...