Recent theoretical work has shown that the incidence of ad valorem and specific taxes may differ and each may be over or under-shifted onto consumers in the presence of imperfect competition. These results are used to derive a method of estimating market power and conduct. An application is made...

This paper applies the panel unit root test proposed by Im, Pesaran and Shin (1997) to test for unemployment hysteresis in the US states and the EU countries against the alternative of a natural rate. The results show that hysteresis for the EU and the natural rate for the US states are the most...

Over the last several years debate over monetary policy has focused on two issues, inflation targeting and asset price bubbles. This paper explores the case for explicitly targeting asset price bubbles, a policy that the Federal Reserve Bank has opposed on the grounds that it is both infeasible...

This paper analyses the effects of commodity price shocks in a new Keynesian model. The focus is on the central bank's choice of inflation target and the degree of real wage rigidity. It turns out that using core inflation rather than headline inflation is the superior strategy. Targeting...

In 2004, Eurostat starts publishing new figures on hourly wage costs for all European countries. These figures are new in several respects: It is the first time that internationally comparable hourly figures on wage costs are available covering a quite important time period (1995-2005), so that...

Die jüngste Auswertung der Eurostat Arbeitskostenstatistik zeigt, dass Deutschland bei den gesamtwirtschaftlichen Arbeitskosten nach wie vor einen Platz im Mittelfeld einnimmt. Im Verhältnis zu anderen westeuropäischen Ländern haben sich die deutschen Arbeitskosten abermals verbilligt....

Die deutsche Wirtschaft wird im laufenden Jahr trotz der Dämpfung aufgrund der restriktiven Finanzpolitik, des drastischen Anstiegs des Ölpreises sowie der Turbulenzen an den Finanzmärkten und der Aufwertung des Euro um 2,6 % wachsen. Nach dem Urteil der Institute sind die endogenen...