This paper highlights the implications for EU macroeconomic policy at a relatively disaggregated level when key economic relationships are nonlinear or asymmetric. Using data for the EU and OECD countries we show that there are considerable non-linearities and asymmetries in the Phillips and Okun curves. High unemployment has a relatively limited effect in pulling inflation [...]
Public employment and the double role of bureaucrats
Bureaucrats in the government sector have a double role since they are both suppliers and demanders of public employment; they are publicly employed (supply labor) and they have an important say in deciding the size of the municipal employment (demand labor). In this paper we present and estimate a theoretical model that focuses on this [...]
Does democracy cure a resource curse?
In this paper we utilise a large and reasonably detailed dataset to show that a greater level of democracy in a country’s political institutions can alleviate the widely known resource curse. Raw material abundance affects per capita growth negatively, an effect that seems to work through several different channels. Resource-abundant countries have a lower degree [...]
Do energy taxes decrease carbon dioxide emissions?
This paper investigates the environmental effectiveness of the energy taxes. That is, whether these have decreased the CO2 emissions and how they have changed the structure of the energy consumption. Time series data for the years 1960-2002 is used. The results show that the oil and coal taxes seem to favour a substitution towards less [...]
The Exchange Rate Pass-through Into Domestic Manufacturing Prices During Two Inflation Regimes
In the beginning of 1990s Sweden implemented several measures in order to maintain price stability. These measures have resulted in an environment in which inflation is lower and more stable. The same development could be seen in other OECD countries. At the same time a decrease in exchange rate pass-through was noticed in many countries. [...]