Die meisten Westbalkanländer haben ein hohes und in der Regel persistentes Leistungsbilanzdefizit von annähernd 10% des BIP. Reduktionen des Leistungsbilanzdefizits der letzten Jahre sind vor allem auf krisenhafte Importzurückhaltung zurückzuführen. Das durchschnittliche Westbalkanland (im...

This paper studies various approaches to the equilibrium real effective exchange rate estimation, including structural and direct estimation approaches. It shows their strengths and weaknesses with application to the case of Latvia. Despite the approaches differing considerably in terms of their...

This paper first shows that capital inflows to and outflows from financial centers were disproportionately affected by the global financial crisis. Switzerland was no exception. The paper then identifies waves of capital flows to and from Switzerland from 2000:Q1 to 2014:Q2 by using a simple...

The Swiss franc is known to appreciate strongly during financial market turmoil, demonstrating its status as a typical safe haven currency. One possible mechanism behind this appreciation during times of global turmoil is assumed to be higher capital inflows to Switzerland. This paper attempts...

We build a two-country model with imperfect financial intermediation. Banks face limits to arbitrage which lead to positive excess returns in the investment markets and a risk premium in the international credit market. Gross capital flows affect the exchange rate since banks are balance sheet...

Poland is obligated to adopt the euro after the fulfilment, inter alia, of the exchange rate criterion which requires entering the Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM II). The European Central Bank recommends that the ERM II central rate should reflect the best possible assessment of the equilibrium...

The present paper extends the Obstfeld and Rogoff (2005) framework of current account imbalances by the oil exporting countries as a fourth region. It sets the stage for a variety of analysis that can be conducted within a four-region-setting that accounts for the importance of OPEC as a major...

this paper analyzes two effects which might have an important impact on a reduction of global external imbalances. These are valuation effects on the one hand and interest rate effects on the other hand. We use a four-region model that is based on the models by Obstfeld and Rogoff (2005) and...

When nontraded goods prices are accounted for consistently and genuine stock data on bilateral foreign asset holdings is employed, a modified sticky-price exchange rate model by far outperforms the benchmark random walk-model in empirically forecasting the D-mark/dollar parity out of sample....

The paper scrutinizes the role of wages and capital flows for competitiveness in the new EU member states in the context of real convergence. For this purpose it extends the seminal Balassa-Samuelson model by international capital markets. The augmented Balassa-Samuelson model is linked to the...