The extent of synchronization of national business cycles is a widespread indicator for gauging whether individual countries are indeed ready to adopt a common currency. The occurrence of asymmetric shocks and their consequences in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) may hamper implementation of...

We examine the effects of the ‘natural resource curse’ on Chad and find little evidence for Dutch disease. Structural vector auto-regression suggests that changes in domestic output and prices are overwhelmingly determined by aggregate demand and supply shocks, and while oil production and...

Since the beginning of the decade, numerous economic and monetary unification projects have aroused a lot of interest. The reinforcement of economic and monetary integration, especially in Europe, has set a trend for the creation of a monetary union in many others regions of the world. Since...

This paper contributes to the discussion on the long term sustainability of the embryonic second monetary union in Africa, the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). We analyse the level of economic and monetary integration in West Africa by analysing the degree of growth cycle synchronisation...

While most economists accept the desirability of expansion of deficits over the short term there are a number of theoretical arguments that lead to the conclusion that higher government debt ratios might depress growth or lead to national insolvency. These have been further ?strengthened?...

In April 2010 Bulgarian government announced an economic and social plan targeted on counteracting the swift economic downfall and hopefully, on helping the economic recovery. The way the plan was launched and the character of some of the measures created a lot of comments, rejection and...

Uma análise retrospectiva da sincronização do ciclo económico nacional com alguns ciclos económicos de referência permite retirar conclusões que suportam a necessidade premente de se apostar na produção nacional que, pelas suas características, seja exportável e/ou substituta de...

This paper investigates the effect of commercial, residential property and equity price volatility on the variability of cyclically adjusted government revenue. We find significant evidence that asset price volatility increases the variability of government revenue. A 1 percent increase in...

A retrospective analysis of the Portuguese business cycle synchronization with some business cycles of reference allows us to draw conclusions that support the vital need to invest in domestic production that, by its nature, being exportable and/or being substitute of imports. From this point of...

This paper aims to evaluate fiscal policy as a macroeconomic stabilization tool in the new EU member countries using a vector autoregression (VAR) framework. The combined results of the analysis of impulse response functions and of the aggressiveness of fiscal discretion suggest that: 1. Shocks...