Suchergebnisse

Membership in the monetary union imposes higher demands on factor market flexibility, since neither the exchange rate nor monetary policies can be used to deal with country-specific shocks. In this paper we assess the ability of the twelve new EU member states (NMS-12) to dampen the impact of shocks by means of macroeconomic wage flexibility. Following the structural VAR approach elaborated in Moore and Pentecost (2006), real wage flexibility is measured by the responsiveness of real wages to real (permanent) and nominal (temporary) shocks. The analysis of Moore and Pentecost (2006) is extended in three ways: by employing a new Eurostat labour cost data set covering 1996Q1 to 2007Q3, by using a large sample of 24 EU member countries, and by assessing the sensitivity of the results to the sample length. We find evidence of heterogeneous real wage adjustment across the new as well as the mature EU economies. Overall, the degree of real wage flexibility in the NMS-12 lies within the bounds of the corresponding values for the Euro Area 'core' and 'peripheral' member countries.

Interest in examining the financial linkages of economies has increased in the wake of the 2008/9 global financial crisis. Applying the concepts of beta- and sigma-convergence of stock market returns, we assess changes over time in the degree of stock market integration of Russia and China with each other, as well as with respect to the United States, the Euro Area, and Japan. Our analysis is based on national and sectoral data spanning the period September 1995 to October 2010. Overall, we find evidence for gradually increasing convergence of stock market returns after the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 1998 Russian financial crisis. Following a major disruption caused by the 2008/9 global financial crisis, the process of stock market return convergence resumes between Russia and China, as well as with world markets. Notably, the episode of sigma-divergence from the 2008/9 crisis is stronger for China than for Russia. We also find that the process of stock market return convergence and the impact of the recent crisis have not been uniform at the sectoral level, suggesting the potential for diversification of risk across sectors.

Estimation and simulation of sustainable real exchange rates in a sample of EU member countries find vulnerabilities connected to the adoption of the euro if the rate vis-à-vis the euro were to be fixed with weak fundamentals and inappropriate policies. Sample countries have benefited from dramatic improvements in their external positions, in part driven by inflows of foreign direct investment. As a result, exchange rate misalignments have narrowed in most countries and, looking ahead, are expected to narrow further. These results are conditional, however, on optimistic projections with respect to world import demand and foreign direct investment inflows.

"Seit der Veröffentlichung des Buches von Blanchflower und Oswald im Jahre 1994 beschäftigt sich die ökonomische Literatur verstärkt mit dem Thema der Lohnkurve, d.h. dem Zusammenhang zwischen Löhnen und regionaler Arbeitslosigkeit. Diese Studien zeigen ein entgegengesetztes Verhältnis zwischen den beiden Variablen und messen eine Elastizität von etwa -0.10, unabhängig von dem Land, indem die Studie durchgeführt wurde. In diesem Beitrag verwenden wir eine beschreibende Meta-Analyse, um die Ergebnisse verschiedener Studien zur Lohnkurve quantitativ zusammenzufassen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen signifikante Unterschiede zwischen Ländern, über Zeitabschnitte und Beschäftigungsgruppen auf, die die Annahme einer stabilen mikroökonomischen Lohnflexibilität in Frage stellen." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

We construct and explore a new quarterly dataset covering crisis episodes in 40 developed countries over 1970–2010. First, we examine stylized facts of banking, debt, and currency crises. Banking turmoil was most frequent in developed economies. Using panel vector autoregression, we confirm that currency and debt crises are typically preceded by banking crises, but not vice versa. Banking crises are also the most costly in terms of the overall output loss, and output takes about six years to recover. Second, we try to identify early warning indicators of crises specific to developed economies, accounting for model uncertainty by means of Bayesian model averaging. Our results suggest that onsets of banking and currency crises tend to be preceded by booms in economic activity. In particular, we find that growth of domestic private credit, increasing FDI inflows, rising money market rates as well as increasing world GDP and inflation were common leading indicators of banking crises. Currency crisis onsets were typically preceded by rising money market rates, but also by worsening government balances and falling central bank reserves. Early warning indicators of debt crisis are difficult to uncover due to the low occurrence of such episodes in our dataset. Finally, employing a signaling approach we show that using a composite early warning index increases the usefulness of the model when compared to using the best single indicator (domestic private credit).

We search for early warning indicators that could indicate important risks in developed economies. We therefore examine which indicators are most useful in explaining costly macroeconomic developments following the occurrence of economic crises in EU and OECD countries between 1970 and 2010. To define our dependent variable, we bring together a (continuous) measure of crisis incidence, which combines the output and employment loss and the fiscal deficit into an index of real costs, with a (discrete) database of crisis occurrence. In contrast to recent studies, we explicitly take into account model uncertainty in two steps. First, for each potential leading indicator, we select the relevant prediction horizon by using panel vector autoregression. Second, we identify the most useful leading indicators with Bayesian model averaging. Our results suggest that domestic housing prices, share prices, and credit growth, and some global variables, such as private credit, are risk factors worth monitoring in developed economies.

We construct and explore a new quarterly dataset covering crisis episodes in 40 developed countries over 1970-2010. First, we examine stylized facts of banking, debt, and currency crises. Using panel vector autoregression, we confirm that currency and debt crises are typically preceded by banking crises, but not vice versa. Banking crises are also the most costly in terms of the overall output loss, and output takes about six years to recover. Second, we try to identify early warning indicators of crises specific to developed economies, accounting for model uncertainty by means of Bayesian model averaging. Our results suggest that onsets of banking and currency crises tend to be preceded by booms in economic activity. In particular, we find that growth of domestic private credit, increasing FDI inflows, rising money market rates as well as increasing world GDP and inflation were common leading indicators of banking crises. Currency crisis onsets were typically preceded by rising money market rates, but also by worsening government balances and falling central bank reserves. Early warning indicators of debt crises are difficult to uncover due to the low occurrence of such episodes in our dataset. Finally, employing a signaling approach we show that using a composite early warning index significantly increases the usefulness of the model when compared to using the best single indicator (domestic private credit).