The paper examines the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in an open economy with and without a binding zero bound on nominal interest rates. In particular, a foolproof way of escaping from a liquidity trap is suggested, consisting of a price-level target path, a devaluation of the currency and a temporary exchange rate peg, which is later abandoned in favor of price-level or in‡ation ta...

This paper examines the debt history of two contenders for European hegemony: 16 century Spain and 18 century Britain. We analyse their fiscal behavior using measures of overborrowing and fiscal policy functions. Our results suggest that stringency was not key for Britain’s success in avoiding default. Instead, fiscal repression allowed the UK to borrow at below-market rates, thereby outspendin...

The Balassa-Samuelson effect is usually seen as the prime explanation of the continuous real appreciation of central and east European (CEE) transition countries' currencies against their western counterparts. The response of a small country's real exchange rate to various shocks is derived in a simple model. It is shown that productivity shocks work not only through a Balassa-type supply chann...

the economy's dependence on oil revenues and derivatives of these products make the country's economy heavily influenced by the volatility and instability of the pricing of these products. therefore, it seems necessary to develop non-oil exports. this paper examines the causality relation and the effect of foreign direct investment, economic openness and real exchange rate on non-oil ...

iran is one of the most concentrated areas of afghan migrants and refugees. most afghans dispersed throughout the country mixed with iranian households. the majority of afghan immigrants are typically unskilled and illegal workers. this study aims at investigating the nature of the causal relationship between afghan immigrants and two main labor market indicators, average wages and unemployment...

We propose a model of flexible trade agreements in which verifying the prevailing contingencies is possible but costly. Two types of flexibility emerge: contingent protection, which requires governments to verify the state of the world, and discretionary protection, which allows governments to set tariffs unilaterally. The structure of the GATT/WTO agreement provides these two types of flexibil...

Article history: Received 12 September 2008 Received in revised form 14 July 2009 Accepted 15 August 2009 Available online 4 September 2009 This paper examines international capital mobility by estimating intertemporal current account models for nine major industrialized countries. To account for the large fluctuations of oil prices (the terms-of-trade) and their effects on the current account,...