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Bulletin No 68 Winter 1997
IN THIS ISSUE... This issue of the Bulletin reports research on competition policy in Central and Eastern Europe, workshops on the location of economic activity and the Japanese economy, as well as the programmes of the four major European symposia in international macroeconomics, international trade, economic theory and financial markets. In a new CEPR publication, four researchers analyse the experiences of the Visegrád countries in terms of competition policy, its role and future development. The report outlines the progress these countries have made in de-monopolizing their markets and stimulating competitive behaviour. The authors assess the overall performance of the policy, including its credibility, its efficiency and its independence from the political process. Recommendations are made for institutional changes. At joint workshop with the Centre for Economic Performance researchers explored recent developments in the theory of spatial agglomeration. A one-day workshop of the European Network on the Japanese Economy took place at CEPR. This was the first in a series of workshops sponsored by the ESRC and the Daiwa Foundation. Four papers addressed current policy debates in Japan: the role of industrial policy, central bank independence, ageing and inequality, and new production paradigms ‘after Toyota’. Among Recent Discussion Papers Simeon Djankov and Bernard Hoekman investigate the relationship between firm restructuring and international competition in Bulgaria during 1991–4.Marius Brülhart and Johan Torstensson analyse the effects of regional integration on the location of industries and the resulting pattern of trade.Micael Castanheira and Gérard Roland take a dynamic general equilibrium approach to analyse the optimal speed of transition.Roland Bénabou examines the link between income distribution and economic growth by investigating the empirical evidence on the convergence of countries to the same level of inequality.Damien Neven and Charles Wyplosz explore the link between trade and European labour markets by using evidence on relative commodity prices and intra-sectoral skill levels for the four large EC countries over the period 1976–90 James Dow studies the effects of opening new financial markets when the existing market consists of differently informed participants with different attitudes to risk.Paul De Grauwe evaluates inflation targeting as a tool to achieve inflation convergence in the transition towards EMU. He also assesses the prospects of a Mini Currency Union in 1999.Willem Buiter, Ricardo Lago and Nicolas Stern examine the main challenges in promoting an effective market economy in a changing world.Hylke Vandenbussche and Reinhilde Veugelers study the welfare effects of European anti-dumping policy and how those measures affect the market structure.Juan Dolado, Juan Jimeno and Rosa Duce analyse the effects of migration on the relative demand of skilled versus unskilled labour using evidence from Spain.Melvyn Coles explains unemployment persistence as an equilibrium phenomenon, and shows that in booms unemployment is low, wages are high and vacancies are plentiful, and vice versa in recessions.Tamim Bayoumi and Barry Eichengreen survey the new wave of empirical studies which attempt to operationalize the theory of optimum currency areas as a way of marshalling evidence on EMU’s costs and benefits. |
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