This paper analyses the investment effects of the 2000 tax reform in Estonia. More precisely, it studies the impact of the shift from an imputation system to a system in which companies pay taxes only with respect to distributed profits. The paper uses Tobin´s q theory of investment and...

The paper analyses the long-run equilibrium and adjustment dynamics in models of economic growth where property rights are absent. A comparison with the standard models assesses the importance of property rights quantitatively. In the neoclassical growth model individuals arrive at a lower...

The paper investigates an economy where parents observe wage rates, interest rates, and child mortality and decide about savings and the quantity and quality of their children. Expenditure on child quality causes human capital accmulation as an external effect. If mortality is high parents...

Policy actions by the ECB have potentially asymmetric effects across countries in Euroland. However, it is unclear whether these differences remain or whether convergence has taken place. This paper considers monetary policy transmission into real activity in a SVAR model. Extending earlier work...

This paper studies the determinants of output volatility in OECD countries to shed light on the sources of the observed heterogenous patterns. For this purpose, we derive tax effects on the variance of output in a stochastic version of the Ramsey model. Using panel data methods we find that...

This paper analyses the long-run effects of Estonia’s 2000 Income Tax Act with a dynamic general equilibrium model. Specifically, we consider the impact of the shift from an imputation system to one where companies only pay taxes on distributed profits. Balanced growth paths, transitional...

We offer some empirical evidence on the likely scale of control and indicator problems surrounding alternative monetary targets and a direct inflation target. The links between monetary policy actions and inflationare estimated in dynamic linear models using the Kalman filter. We compare...

In this Paper we present two new composite leading indicators of economic activity in Germany estimated using a dynamic factor model with and without regime switching. The obtained optimal inferences of business cycle turning points indicate that the two-state regime switching procedure leads to...

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on what makes German regions grow. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal...

Utilizing panel data for 19 OECD countries we find support for the hypothesis that a greater degree of product variety relative to the US helps to explain relative per capita GDP levels. The empirical work relies upon some direct measures of product variety calculated from 6-digit OECD export...