The eurozone crisis has focused attention on what caused it, how it can be handled and what can be done to avoid future crises. Against this background all but two member states of the European Union have signed a draft treaty, the 'fiscal compact', that seeks to eliminate structural fiscal...

This paper presents a fast, simple and intuitive algorithm for simulation of linear dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with inequality constraints. The algorithm handles both the computation of impulse responses, and stochastic simulation, and can deal with arbitrarily many bounded...

In this paper, we examine the stability of international macroeconomic policies of developing countries in the post-Bretton Woods period. We use the simple geometry of the classic, open-economy trilemma to construct a new, univariate measure of inter- national macroeconomic policy stability, and...

The success of IMF supported programmes has conventionally been assessed by examining their effects on intermediate variables such as fiscal deficits, monetary growth and exchange rates, and final outcomes, such as the balance of payments, inflation and economic growth. However, little or no...

We examine the properties of several residual-based cointegration tests when long run parameters are subject to multiple shifts driven by an unobservable Markov process. Unlike earlier work, which considered one-off deterministic breaks, our approach has the advantage of allowing for an...

Many studies have shown that technical change has led to job polarisation. A relatively unexplored aspect of this is whether there has been a gender bias. This paper is the first to show gender bias in technology driven skill polarisation. Between 1997 and 2006 the demand for women shows...

We examine fiscal policy coordination in a two-country world with two types of asymmetries. The first type of asymmetry is a difference in the efficiency of taxation systems, the second is a varying degree of myopia as represented by discount rates. We examine the conditions under which...

Much has been written about the impact of over-education on wages using cross-sectional data, although there have been few studies that analyse the returns to over-education in a dynamic setting. This paper adds to the existing literature by using panel data to investigate the impact and...

Traditional models have encountered problems in explaining the ac- cumulation of international reserves, particularly in Asia, in the period since the late 1990s. One suggestion has been that countries have sought to self insure against future crises, either because of a perceived increase in...

We solve a model of time to build, in closed form, for the special case where the only option is commencing investment. The ratio of the optimal to the NPV investment threshold is as in the standard analysis of irreversible investment. We then report numerical solutions for the general case...