Bulletin Issue 65 (Winter 1995/96) Contents
In This Issue

· Highlights of this issue

Research

· Do Inflation Targets Work? By Mervyn King

· Central and Eastern Europe - Tax and Benefit Reform

Conferences

The following conferences were discussed in this issue:

· Transition Economics - Comparative Market Reforms

Workshops

The following workshops were discussed in this issue:

· Labour Markets - Nominal Rigidities

· Labour Markets - Imperfections and Unemployment

· Labour Markets - British Panel Studies

· Finance in Europe - Modelling the Markets

· Finance in Europe - International Taxation

· Empirical Macroeconomics - Methods and Problems

· Economic Geography - New Analytical Developments

· Transition Economics - Exchange Rate Regimes

Discussion Meetings

The following meetings were discussed in this issue:

· The Elixir of Growth - Trade and Development

· Initial Public Offerings - Incentives to Underprice

· The European Union - Policies in Conflict

· Growth Miracles - Explaining East Asia

Discussion Papers

The following Discussion Papers were discussed in this issue: 

· Tentative First Steps: An Assessment of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Services by Bernard Hoekman

· Tax and Benefit Reform in the Czech and Slovak Republics by Christopher Heady and Tony E Smith

· The Innovation, Unemployment and Competitiveness Challenge in Germany by David B Audretsch

· Measuring Core Inflation by Danny T Quah and Shaun P Vahey

· R&D Cooperation and the Stability of International Environmental Agreements by Carlo Carraro and Domenico Siniscalco

· Factor Price Distortions and Public Subsidies in East Germany by Hans-Werner Sinn

· Environmental Feedbacks and Optimal Taxation in Oligopoly by Carlo Carraro and Antoine Soubeyran

· The Gender Gap, Fertility and Growth by Oded Galor and David N Weil

· The Entwining of Trade Policy with Environmental and Labour Standards by Kym Anderson

· Is There a Trade-off between Unemployment and Productivity Growth? by Robert J Gordon

· Demand-Driven Financial Development by Gilles Saint-Paul

· Innovative Clusters and the Industry Life Cycle by David B Audretsch and Maryann P Feldman

· Sub-Optimal Scale Firms and Compensating Factor Differentials in Dutch Manufacturing by David B Audretsch, George van Leeuwen, Bert J Menkveld and A. Roy Thurik

· Tests of the 'Convergence Hypothesis': Some Further Results by Daniel Cohen

· Speculative Market Structure and the Collapse of an Exchange Rate Mechanism by Zhaohui Chen

· The Elixir of Growth: Trade, Non-Traded Goods and Development by Patrick Minford, Jonathan Riley and Eric Nowell

· The Taxation of Entrepreneurial Income in a Transition Economy: Issues Raised by Experience in Poland by Maciej Grabowski and Tony E Smith

· Tax and Benefit Reform in Central and Eastern Europe by David M G Newbery

· East European Trade and the Austrian Labour Market by Karl Aiginger, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer and Josef Zweimüller

· New Empirical Evidence on the Costs of European Monetary Union by Hélène Erkel-Rousse and Jacques Mélitz

· Regional Insurance Against Asymmetric Shocks. An Empirical Study for the European Community by Jürgen von Hagen and George W Hammond

· Universal Banks and German Industrialization: A Reappraisal by Jeremy S S Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie

· Currency Unions, Economic Fluctuations and Adjustment: Some Empirical Evidence by Tamim Bayoumi and Eswar Prasad

· VERs Under Imperfect Competition and Foreign Direct Investment: A Case Study of the US-Japan Auto VER by Jaime de Melo and David Tarr

· Russian Enterprises in Transition by Christian de Boissieu, Daniel Cohen and Gaël de Pontbriand

· Vertically Related Markets and Trade Policy in a Bargaining Framework by Larry S Karp and Lucy Sioli

· A Contribution to Unemployment Dynamics by Dennis J Snower and Marika Karanassou

· Imperfect Competition, Risk Taking, and Regulation in Banking by Carmen Matutes and Xavier Vives

· Large Shareholders and Banks: Who Monitors and How? by Yishay Yafeh and Oved Yosha

· Capital Mobility, Fiscal Policy and Growth Under Self-Financing of Human Capital Formation by Willem H Buiter and Kenneth M Kletzer

· Designing Institutions for International Monetary Policy Coordination by Antonio J Morales and A Jorge Padilla

· Why do Pre-tax Car Prices Differ so Much Across European Countries? by Harry Flam and Håkan Nordström

· Trade Performance and Trade Policy in Central and Eastern Europe by Zdenek Drábek and Alasdair Smith

· Free Trade and Long-Run Growth by Dan Ben-David and Michael B Loewy

· Why is Spanish Unemployment so High? by Juan J Dolado and Juan F Jimeno

· Creating Creditworthiness through Reciprocal Trade by Dalia Marin and Monika Schnitzer

· Wage Inequality and Unemployment: US vs Europe by Giuseppe Bertola and Andrea Ichino

· Accumulation and the Extent of Inequality by Giuseppe Bertola

· Who Needs Bands? Exchange Rate Policy Before EMU by Tamim Bayoumi

· On Measuring the Costs of Labour Immobility and Market Heterogeneity in Europe by Maria Demertzis and Andrew J Hughes Hallett

· Economic Cooperation within Europe: Lessons from the Monetary Arrangements in the 1990s by Andrew J Hughes Hallett and Yue Ma

· International Business Cycles and the ERM: Is there a European Business Cycle? by Michael J Artis and Wenda Zhang

· Privatization and X-Inefficiency: A Bargaining Approach by Jonathan Haskel and Amparo Sanchis

· Cartels, Contracts and Centralization: The Transition to Futures Trading for Primary Commodities by Jonathan Haskel and Andrew Powell

· Do Other Firms Matter in Oligopolies? by Jonathan Haskel and Pasquale Scaramozzino

· Macroeconomic Policy in Central Europe by William H Branson and Jorge Braga de Macedo

· Resale Markets and the Assignment of Property Rights by Philippe Jehiel and Benny Moldovanu

· Financial System Architecture by Arnoud W A Boot and Anjan V Thakor

· Trade Liberalization, Employment and Migration. Some Simulations for Morocco by Riccardo Faini and Jaime de Melo

· International R&D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy without Government Commitment by Dermot Leahy and J Peter Neary

· Unemployment Duration, Unemployment Benefits, and Labour Market Programmes in Sweden by Kenneth Carling, Pers-Anders Edin, Anders Harkman and Bertil Holmlund

· A Centre-Periphery Model of Monetary Coordination and Exchange Rate Crises by Willem H Buiter, Giancarlo Corsetti and Paolo A Pesenti

· The Anatomy of Unemployment Dynamics by Jaap H Klemperer, Gerard J van den Berg and Jan C van Ours

· The Survival of New Plants: Start-up Conditions and Post-entry Evolution by José Mata, Pedro Portugal and Paulo Guimaraes

· Free Trade and Evolving Standards by Alessandra Casella

· A Framework for Analysing the Political Support for Active Labour Market Policy by Gilles Saint-Paul

· Real Business Cycles with Involuntary Unemployment by Jordi Galí

· Why is there Multilateral Lending? by Dani Rodrik

· Foreign Equity Investment Restrictions, Capital Flight, and Shareholder Wealth Maximization by René M Stulz and Walter Wasserfallen

· The Golden Age of Economic Growth: Why Did Northern Ireland Miss Out? by Nicholas F R Crafts

· An Essay on the Emergence of the International Gold Standard, 1870-80 by Marc Flandreau

· Underpricing, Ownership and Control in Initial Public Offerings of Equity Securities in the UK by Michael J Brennan and Julian Franks

· Minimum Wages: Curse or Blessing? by Morten O Ravn and Jan Rose Sorensen

· The Economics of Convergence towards Monetary Union in Europe by Paul De Grauwe

· Multilateral Trade Rules and the Expected Cost of Protection by Joseph F Francois and Will Martin

· Voucher Privatization, Corporate Control and the Cost of Capital: An Analysis of the Czech Privatization Programme by Sweder van Wijnbergen and Anton Marcincin

· Multi-object Auctions: On the Use of Combinational Bids by Fernando Branco

· European Monetary Unification: The Challenges Ahead by Barry Eichengreen and Fabio Ghironi

· Efficiency and Equity: Is There a Trade-off? by Isabel Correia

· The Monetary Transmission Mechanism: Evidence from the G-7 Countries by Stefan Gerlach and Frank Smets

· Real Effects of Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization: An Analysis of Competing Theories by Sérgio Rebelo and Carlos A Végh

· Capital Utilization and Returns to Scale by Craig Burnside, Martin Eichenbaum and Sérgio Rebelo

· Macroeconomic Policy During a Transition to Monetary Union by Willem H Buiter

· Reforming Europe's Labour Market: Political Issues by Gilles Saint-Paul

· The Transition in Russia: Successes (Privatization, Low Unemployment...) and Failures (Mafias, Liquidity Constraints...). A Theoretical Analysis by Daniel Cohen

· The Break up of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis by Patrick Bolton and Gérard Roland

· The WTO, the EU and the Arab World: Trade Policy Priorities and Pitfalls by Bernard Hoekman

· The Duration of Unemployment and the Persistence of Wages by Jonathan Leonard and Marc Van Audenrode

· The Role of Services in the Structure of Production and Trade: Stylized Facts from a Cross-Country Analysis by Joseph F Francois and Kenneth A Reinert

· Migration and the Option Value of Waiting by Michael C Burda

· The Seamless World: A Spatial Model of International Specialization by Paul Krugman and Anthony J Venables

· Nominal Rigidity and Monetary Uncertainty in a Small Open Economy by Neil Rankin

· Unions and Wage Insurance by Michael C Burda

· Product Quality and Worker Quality by John Abowd, Francis Kramarz and Antoine Moreau

· The Political Economy of the Eastern Enlargement of the EU by Peter Bofinger

· Integrating the East: The Labour Market Effects of Immigration by Thomas Bauer and Klaus F Zimmermann

· Aggregate and Regional Disaggregate Fluctuations by Danny T Quah

· Banking Scope, Financial Innovation, and the Evolution of the Financial System by Arnoud W A Boot and Anjan V Thakor

· The Impact of EU Trade Agreements with Central and East European Countries: The Case of Spain by Carmela Martín

· Equilibrium Currency Crises: Are Multiple Equilibria Self-fulfilling or History Dependent? by Gareth Davies and David Vines

· After the Deluge: Do Fixed Exchange Rates Allow Inter-temporal Volatility Trade-offs? by Andrew K Rose

· The Macroeconomics of the Mexican Crisis: A Simple Two-period Model by Gregor Irwin and David Vines

· Is a European Hard Core Credible? A Statistical Analysis by Alexis Jacquemin and André Sapir

· Public Policy Towards R&D in Oligopolistic Industries by Dermot Leahy and J Peter Neary

· Let's Get Real: A Dynamic Factor Analytical Approach to Disaggregated Business Cycle by Mario Forni and Lucrezia Reichlin

· Europe's Single Market: The Long March to 1992 by André Sapir

· Fiscal Crises and Aggregate Demand: Can High Public Debt Reverse the Effects of Fiscal Policy? by Alan Sutherland

· Fiscal Policy and Monetary Union: Federalism, Fiscal Restrictions and the No-Bailout Rule by Barry Eichengreen and Jürgen von Hagen

· The Stability of the Gold Standard and the Evolution of the International Monetary System by Tamim Bayoumi and Barry Eichengreen

· Optimal Inflation Targets, 'Conservative' Central Banks, and Linear Inflation Contracts by Lars E O Svensson

· Bank Restructuring and Soft Budget Constraints in Financial Transition by Erik Berglöf and Gérard Roland

· The Age-Wealth Profile and the Life-Cycle Hypothesis: A Cohort Analysis with a Time Series of Cross-Sections of Italian Households by Tullio Jappelli

· Can Capital Controls Alter the Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off? by Assaf Razin and Chi-Wa Yuen

· Endogenous Realignments and the Sustainability of a Target Zone by Christopher J Neely, Paul Weller and P Dean Corbae

· The Classical Approach to Convergence Analysis by Xavier Sala-i-Martin