In the past time, most economies have suffered cyclical fluctuations in their activity which may influence the optimal use of productive factors in long slow-growth phases or price stability in periods of fast growth. This paper focuses on the possible interrelationship between business cycles...

This paper studies the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis (BSH) in the context of two areas with strong differences in economic development, twelve OECD countries and twelve Latin American economies, taking the USA as the benchmark. Applying panel cointegration techniques, we find that while the first...

This paper investigates cross-country productivity convergence for the period 1960-1999. The testing strategy is based on a combination of tests and estimation methods. We use the de…nitions of time-series convergence by Bernard and Durlauf (1995), applying multivariate unit root tests, such...

In this paper we examine whether the conventional result of a greater degree of integration leading to lower price-cost margins (i.e., the pro-competitive effect), would hold when two countries integrate by forming a common market. We propose a general framework of reference, in order to assess...

In this paper we study the hypothesis that the repeated purchases in the tourism markets could be considered as a consequence of asymmetrical information problems. We analyze this hypothesis with the case study of the Island of Tenerife by the estimation of a count data model. We obtain that the...

In this paper we propose a simple, automatic insurance mechanism designed to cope with asymmetric shocks in a monetary union, which could be used as starting point of a more elaborated policy instrument. The mechanism would use as indicator of the occurrence of a shock the changes in the...

During the 1990’s several fixed or quasi-fixed exchange rate systems collapsed. Currency crises have happened in both developed and emerging countries so it is necessary to forecast and avoid them. However, financial market crises have been extremely di¢cult to forecast. Economic agents’...

In most intertemporal models of the current account, country specific productivity has ambiguous effects on the current account depending on whether consumption effect or investment effect dominates. The objective of this paper is to investigate the role of productivity shocks, in combination...

The international oil market has been very volatile over the past three decades. In industrialized economies, especially in Europe, taxes represent a large fraction of oil prices and governments do not seem to react to oil price shocks by using oil taxes strategically. The aim of this paper is...

In this paper we estimate different specifications of a model for the determination of the bilateral real exchange rate of the peseta relative to nine European Union members. The model is based on Meese and Rogo (1988) monetary approach as extended by MacDonald (1998). The applied econometric...