Resource curse theory claims that resource abundance encourages violent conflict. A study of 37 oil-producing developing countries, however, reveals that oil states with very high levels of oil revenue are remarkably stable. An analysis of the ways in which governments spend oil revenues...

Public authorities overseeing the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation, through the Monitoring Board in place since early 2009, should encourage the Foundation to make itself more directly accountable to the global investment community. The Monitoring Board should...

Auf der UN-Klimakonferenz in Cancun im Dezember 2010 haben sich die teilnehmenden Staaten auf ein Maßnahmenpaket geeinigt, das auch einen globalen Grünen Klimafonds enthält. Der Design-Prozess dieses Fonds steht jetzt auf der politischen Agenda. Eine verbesserte Koordinierung der...

Die US-Zentralbank hat begonnen, mit ihrem Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2) die Märkte mit Liquidität zu überschwemmen. Betroffen sind nicht allein die USA, sondern vor allem Länder, die ihre Währung an den US-Dollar gebunden haben. Aber auch flexible Wechselkurse bieten nur geringen Schutz vor...

This paper reviews progress to date towards a new trade agreement under the Doha Development Agenda. Some of the key issues in contention are examined, including barriers to trade in agriculture and manufacturing, intellectual property rights, and competition policy. A potential sticking point...

This paper proposes a strategy to increase the efficiency of forecast combination. Given the availability of a wide range of forecasts for the same variable of interest, our goal is to apply combining methods to a restricted set of models. To this aim, a hierarchical procedure based on an...

The theory suggests that investment activities and monetary policy influence the development of the global business cycle. The oil price and other raw material prices also play a key role in the economic development and there is a co-movement among oil consumption and global output. Therefore,...