Suchergebnisse

One of the key issues facing the UK in the wake of the advisory referendum result to leave the European Union is the precise nature of its relationship with the European Union. At one extreme would be continued membership in the European Economic Area, including membership in the single market. Other options would be either no free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU at all or a less comprehensive FTA which stops short of single market membership. This paper compares the ability of EEA membership and less comprehensive FTAs to generate trade in goods and services. We investigate this question using empirical gravity model methodology and the most recent available data from 42 countries. We use recently developed econometric methods to deal with observations of zero trade flows and issues connected with endogeneity. The main finding is that while EEA membership is associated with substantial and statistically significant increases in bilateral services trade flows, membership in less comprehensive FTAs is not associated with any significant increase in bilateral services trade. For goods, EEA membership is associated with larger bilateral trade flows than are less comprehensive FTAs. These results suggest that it might be difficult to replace, on an exit from a European Union, lost trade flows with the EU by means of shallower FTAs with the EU or with third countries.

The Scotland Bill 2015–16 would make the Scottish government one of the most powerful sub-central governments in the OECD in terms of its control over spending and taxation. The UK government has also announced plans to introduce 'English Votes for English Laws' (EVEL), where the support of a majority of English MPs would be necessary to pass legislation deemed to impact on England only. The objective of this paper is to examine the potential for spillovers to arise in monetary unions of asymmetric nations where fiscal policy choices are taken locally. We extend a model of Chari and Kehoe (2008) to show the sub-optimal consequences of devolved fiscal policy in a moneteary union with a dominant member state. Because England is so much larger than the other constituent nations of the UK, its fiscal policy choices will have a commensurately stronger impact on UK monetary policy. As a result, UK monetary policy might be inappropriate for the smaller nations, calling into question the economic efficiency of EVEL. This is a general result which arises from the asymmetry of nations rather than specific UK funding arrangements or behavioural responses.

This paper considers which currency option would be best for an independent Scotland. We examine three currency options: being part of a sterling currency zone, adopting the euro, or having an independent currency. No currency option is the best when considered against all criteria. Therefore, making the decision requires deciding which criteria are most important. Recent events around the world, particularly in Europe, show that it is essential to consider how an independent Scotland would seek to adjust to adverse economic circumstances. In economists' terms, it is important to think through the 'off-equilibrium' adjustment paths of each of the currency options. The amount of public debt, and so the capacity for a fiscal response, is a critical determinant of these paths and therefore of the optimal currency choice. Since commitment to a currency union by an independent country can only be conditional, an independent Scotland might find it optimal to abandon the currency union in the future if the financial stability advantages to having its own currency begin to outweigh any disadvantages due to trade and transactions costs.

Most treatments of the Great Depression have focused on its onset and its aftermath. In contrast, we take a unified view of the interwar period. We look at the slide into and the emergence from the 1920-21 recession and the roaring 1920s boom, as well as the slide into the Great Depression after 1929, and attempt to explain these phenomena in a unified framework. The model framework combines monopolistic product market competition with search frictions and bargaining in the labor market, allowing for both individual and collective (unionized) wage bargaining. We attribute the extraordinary macroeconomic and financial volatility of this period to two factors: Shifts in the wage bargaining regime and in the degree of monopoly power in the economy. The pro-union provisions of the Clayton Act of 1914 contributed to the slide in asset prices and the depression of 1920-21, while a series of tough anti-union Supreme Court decisions in late 1921 and 1922 coupled with the lax anti-trust enforcement of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations enabled a major rise in corporate profits and stock market valuations throughout the 1920s. Landmark court decisions in favor of trade unions in the late 1920s, as well as political pressure on firms to adopt the welfare capitalism model of high wages, made the economy increasingly susceptible to collapsing profit expectations. We model the onset of the great depression as an equilibrium switch from individual wage bargaining to (actual or mimicked) collective wage bargaining. The general equilibrium effects of this regime change are consistent with large decreases in output, employment, and stock prices.

Most treatments of the Great Depression have focused on its onset and its aftermath. In contrast, we take a unified view of the interwar period. We look at the slide into and the emergence from the 1920-21 recession and the roaring 1920s boom, as well as the slide into the Great Depression after 1929, and attempt to explain these phenomena in a unified framework. The model framework combines monopolistic product market competition with search frictions and bargaining in the labor market, allowing for both individual and collective (unionized) wage bargaining. We attribute the extraordinary macroeconomic and financial volatility of this period to two factors: Shifts in the wage bargaining regime and in the degree of monopoly power in the economy. The pro-union provisions of the Clayton Act of 1914 contributed to the slide in asset prices and the depression of 1920-21, while a series of tough anti-union Supreme Court decisions in late 1921 and 1922 coupled with the lax anti-trust enforcement of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations enabled a major rise in corporate profits and stock market valuations throughout the 1920s. Landmark court decisions in favor of trade unions in the late 1920s, as well as political pressure on firms to adopt the welfare capitalism model of high wages, made the economy increasingly susceptible to collapsing profit expectations. We model the onset of the great depression as an equilibrium switch from individual wage bargaining to (actual or mimicked) collective wage bargaining. The general equilibrium effects of this regime change are consistent with large decreases in output, employment, and stock prices.

The value of exports to the domestic UK economy does not equal gross export flows, as some of the value-added within UK exports may have been generated abroad. For key business and financial service industries we present new and initial estimates giving a lower bound for the value-added component of exports generated directly by the domestic exporting sector, called the direct domestic value-added component of exports. Our initial estimates suggest that at least 38 per cent of UK monetary financial institutions (MFIs) exports in 2016 was direct domestic value-added amounting to £14.6bn, of which £5.0bn came from exports to the EU. These initial estimates suggest that approximately 80 per cent of accountancy and legal services exports in 2014 were direct domestic value-added amounting to £1.7bn and £5.2bn respectively, of which £500mn and £1.7bn came from exports to the EU respectively.