After the introduction of the euro notes and coins in January 2002, throughout the Economic and Monetary Union member countries there was a widespread feeling that the euro had brought about a significant hike in consumer prices. A substantial discrepancy was evident between inflation as...

This paper conducts an empirical analysis on the U.S. VCR market using a hedonic approach. The paper finds that quality-adjusted price indices decline at 11-12% per year, with a large annual drop of about 18% from 1982-85. Estimation and data analysis reveal interesting aspects of the evolution...

We apply recent money illusion tests on data on individual life satisfaction from the Eurobarometer for the period 1980–2003. The null hypothesis of no money illusion cannot be rejected. Different nominal rigidities across European countries and EMU countries, specifically, cannot be explained...

We adopt the hedonic approach to develop a price index for the housing market in Italy. The hedonic approach allows to separate the price variations due to qualitative changes of housing attributes from pure price changes, that is the intrinsic real estate price variations. As a result, it...

There is a general view that the export performance of India is unsatisfactory because of its low competitiveness, but no systematic attempt has been made to validate this view. India needs a 12 per cent compound annual growth rate for exports during 2002–07 to reach 1 per cent of world...

Purpose – It is important to forecast index series to identify future rises, falls, and turning points in the property market. From the point of this necessity and importance, the main purpose of this paper is to forecast the future trends in Dubai housing market. Design/methodology/approach...

This paper analyzes a household’s leisure expenditure by exploring data on Korean urban households and provides policy implications. Among the major findings from quantitative analyses are the significant correlations between leisure consumption and disposable income, and between leisure...

Recently, the U. S. subprime crisis has shown that a weak collateralization of credits may have massive economic implications, entailing severe perturbations of the international financial system. We focus on central bank lending and try to pin down the quantitative impact of the...

We construct, on the basis of an original methodology and database, composite indices to measure domestic financial development in 26 emerging economies, using mature economies as a benchmark. Twenty-two variables are used and grouped according to three broad dimensions: (i) institutions and...

Individuals' level of engagement on the labor market is hypothesized to be of critical importance for labor market outcomes. Based on a recent labor market survey in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), this paper develops an innovative index to measure individuals' labor market engagement across...