Have exogenous changes in import competition from low-wage countries (LWCs) brought about changes in inflationary pressure in Europe? This paper examines whether labor-intensive exports from Asia and other global regions have a uniform impact on producer prices in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden,...

Are language skills important in explaining the nexus between house prices and immigrant inflows? The language barrier hypothesis says that immigrants from a non common language country value amenities more than immigrants from common language countries. In turn, immigrants from non common...

Do immigrants have a higher demand for large denominated banknotes than natives? This study examines whether cash orders for CHF 1000 notes, a banknote not used for daily transactions, is concentrated in Swiss cities with a high foreign-to-native ratio. Controlling for a range of socio-economic...

What is the impact of import competition from low-wage countries (LWCs) on inflationary pressure in Europe? This paper examines whether labor- intensive exports from emerging Europe, Asia, and other global regions have a uniform impact on producer prices in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, and...

Merchanting is goods trade that does not cross the border of the firm's resident country. Merchanting grew strongly in the last decade in select small open economies and has become an important driver of these countries' current account. Because merchanting firms reinvest their earnings abroad...

In this paper, we examine external, monetary, and structural determinants of cross-country variation in reserve volatility for 30 emerging market economies from 1973 to 2000. We find that reserve holdings and openess to be the most important determinants of reserve volatility. These results are...

This paper estimates monthly pass-through ratios from import prices to consumer prices in real time. Conventional time series methods impose restrictions to generate exogenous shocks on exchange rates or import prices when estimating pass-through coefficients. Instead, our estimation strategy...