how to beat the random walk an empirical model of real exchange rates abstract an econometric model is developed for all possible bilateral real exchange rates between the united states the united kingdom germany and japan for the period february 1977 to june 1987 we extend the standard dornbusch frankel type of models using an error correction approach with an observable macro economic determinant of the long run real exchange rate for the econometric analysis we develop an efficient estimator by pooling the data for all currencies contrary to previous empirical tests on the long run behaviour of real exchange rates we find a notable and significant mean reversion component

material flows vs natural capital what makes an economy sustainable abstract in the discourse about sustainable development constant natural capital is frequently referred to as a criterion for ecological sustainability but what is natural capital the concept will be analyzed by presenting arguments in favour of using the term and different versions of sustainability strong and weak subsequently a critique of the natural capital concept is brought forward from an ecological as well as from an economic perspective following this critique the use of material inputs and the material input per unit of service mips as a measure for the environmental impact potential is suggested dematerialisation is understood to be an alternative management rule for sustainability in conclusion a change of perspective is proposed due to the conceptual and measurement problems associated with the constant natural capital criterion which refers to a stock it seems more reasonable from a scientific as well as from a practical perspective to add flows i e material inputs to a decision criterion for whether a development is sustainable or not

to reveal or not to reveal strategic disclosure of private information in negotiation abstract within the bargaining literature it is widely held that negotiators should never reveal information that will lead to disclosure of their reservation prices we analyze a simple bargaining and search model in which the informed buyer can choose to reveal his cost of searching for an outside price which determines his reservation price to the uninformed seller we demonstrate that buyers can be made better off by revealing their search cost more interestingly we also find that depending on the assumed distribution of search costs sometimes buyers with relatively low search costs should reveal their private information whereas in other cases buyers with relatively high search costs should do so we then test our model experimentally and find that subjects behavior is not entirely consistent with theoretical predictions in general bargainers behavior is better explained by a bounded rationality model similar to fictitious play

the employment effects of sustainable development policies abstract this paper argues that it is time for ecological economists to bring the employment impacts of sustainable development policies to the forefront of the research agenda important conservation efforts continue to founder because of their perceived employment effects the paper examines the evidence on the employment impacts of sustainable development policies and argues that maintaining or even increasing employment depends critically on appropriate policy design and attention to the political economy of implementation of policies the paper concludes that a better understanding of these issues fair labour market and structural adjustment programs and especially forward planning to anticipate problem areas must replace the piecemeal knee jerk reactions to environmental issues such as were evident in australia during the last federal election

scale prices and biophysical assessments abstract in a recent forum on biophysical assessments a number of ecological economists expressed serious reservations about the use of prices to assess the appropriate scale of macroeconomic systems while such reservations are warranted the preference for biophysical assessments over prices indicates that many ecological economists are focussing on one notion of scale and neglecting another altogether there are two notions of scale that are critical to achieving sustainable development sd one is the maximum sustainable macroeconomic scale the other is the optimal macroeconomic scale the maximum sustainable scale is the largest macroeconomic scale that can be sustained by a throughput of matter energy that is within the ecosphere s regenerative and waste assimilative capacities the optimal scale is a preferable macroeconomic scale and is one that is not only sustainable but one that maximises the net benefits of economic activity biophysical assessments are needed to determine the maximum sustainable scale because ecological sustainability is a biophysical problem not an economic problem thus it is through biophysical assessments that the necessary restrictions on the incoming resource flow can be calculated and imposed however since the achievement of an optimal macroeconomic scale is an economic problem albeit a constrained economic problem relative prices are required to efficiently allocate the sustainable resource flow so the macroeconomy can adjust to the optimum failure to recognise the two notions of scale and the most appropriate means of their assessment is likely to thwart rather than advance the movement toward sd

what can we learn from the grand policy experiment lessons from so2 allowance trading stable url http links jstor org sici sici 0895 3309 28199822 2912 3a3 3c69 3awcwlft 3e2 0 co 3b2 tthe journal of economic perspectives is currently published by american economic association your use of the jstor archive indicates your acceptance of jstor s terms and conditions of use available athttp www jstor org about terms html jstor s terms and conditions of use provides in part that unless you have obtainedprior permission you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles and you may use content inthe jstor archive only for your personal non commercial use please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work publisher contact information may be obtained athttp www jstor org journals aea html each copy of any part of a jstor transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission the jstor archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long term preservation and access to leading academicjournals and scholarly literature from around the world the archive is supported by libraries scholarly societies publishers and foundations it is an initiative of jstor a not for profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology for more information regarding jstor please contact support jstor org http www jstor orgtue jun 26 16 25 17 2007

real exchange rates in the short medium and long run abstract this paper uses long horizon autocorrelations and variance ratio statistics to test for long term mean reversion in real exchange rates unlike most previous tests of this hypothesis the tests do reject a random walk for monthly data in the post bretton woods era however the statistics indicate that positively correlated innovations rather than mean reversion are the source of the rejection tests using annual data for the twentieth century also reject the random walk in this case however the rejection can be attributed to mean reversion and confirms that ppp is a long term phenomenon

analysis of energy embodied in the international trade of uk interest in the role embodied energy plays in international trade and its subsequent impact on energy security has grown as a developed nation the uk s economic structure has changed from that of a primary producer to that of a primary consumer although the uk s energy consumption appears to have peaked it imports a lot of energy embodied in international trade alongside the more obvious direct energy imports the uk has seen increasing dependency on imported fossil energy since the uk became a net energy importer in 2005 in this paper an energy input output model is established to calculate not only the amount of fossil energy embodied in uk s imports and exports but also the sector and country distributions of those embodied fossil energy the research results suggest the following uk s embodied fossil energy imports have exceeded embodied fossil energy exports every year since 1997 uk embodied energy imports through the so called made in china phenomena are the largest accounting for 43 of total net fossil energy imports if net embodied fossil energy imports are considered the gap between energy consumption and production in uk is much larger than commonly perceived with subsequent implications to the uk s energy security

the environment as a luxury good or too poor to be green abstract this paper discusses the views of different authors on the relations between economic growth and environmental scarcities it lays out the common assumptions behind inglehart s postmaterialist thesis in environmental sociology krutilla s criterion for the valuation of environmental amenities hirsch s notion of the positional economy and pearce s numerical results on weak sustainability the paper shows how different views on the environmental consequences of economic growth imply at the same time different theories about environmental movements in rich countries there is an increasing demand for environmental amenities which cannot be substituted by products of the material economy and there are also environmental movements against the effluents of affluence in poor countries there are environmental movements characterized as the environmentalism of the poor

sustainability indicators policy and governance issues for ecological economics abstract ecological economics is a major forum for discussion of theoretical and analytical aspects of measuring sustainability the role of sustainability indicators as an evaluation method for sustainability within the emerging context of governance merits further analysis focusing on policy processes surrounding the production of sustainability indicators this paper addresses two questions what is the potential utility of indicators for policy and in what ways can indicators influence governance the former is addressed by exploring three disciplines with long histories of indicator application public administration studies urban studies and environmental sciences the latter is addressed by distilling key perspectives from public policy literature on knowledge utilisation and policy learning which become the foundation for clarifying the notion of policy resonant indicators this clarification is achieved by canvassing the spectrum of the influences on indicators and the mechanisms of their resonance in policy processes the final section of the paper brings these arguments together by exploring two major insights in terms of challenges for ecological economics strengthening indicator theory and practice by addressing four key ingredients and mobilisation of indicators through their active use within the context of governance

aggregate spending and the terms of trade is there a laursen metzler effect this paper investigates the spending and current account effects of terms of trade shifts in a model where households maximize utility over an infinite planning period in the framework developed here an economy specialized in production must experience a fall in aggregate spending and a current surplus as a result of an unanticipated permanent worsening in its terms of trade the paper s model thus provides a setting in which the current account deficit predicted by laursen and metzier harberger and others fails to materialize

the rhetorics of ecological economics since the early 1980s there has been a lively discussion about the rhetoric of economics ecological economists however so far have not tried to incorporate this discussion into their work this paper is a first step towards including the discourse on rhetoric into the self awareness of ecological economics after a brief outline of what this discourse is about the importance of metaphors as one aspect of rhetoric is examined connections of the rhetorical discourse to ecological economics as a post normal science are shown it is argued that two rhetorics of ecological economics can be distinguished internal and external rhetoric while the former refers mostly to methodological issues the latter is of particular importance for the political impact that ecological economics can have finally some suggestions for research are made

the role of external search in bilateral bargaining we consider the problem of bargaining between two individuals who can also search for possible alternatives to each other s offers we explicitly incorporate the search activity into the process of bargaining a disagreement in bargaining will lead each individual to search for an outside offer in the hope of improving his future bargaining position and attaining a more favorable outcome we model the interlaced phases of bargaining and search over time as an extensive noncooperative game we characterize the associated subgame perfect equilibrium outcome and strategies finally we show that superior search ability yields an individual a more favorable outcome and hence represents a greater bargaining strength

indicators of sustainable development some lessons from capital theory abstract interest in sustainable development has prompted a search for suitable indicators that might complement or supplant the traditional measures of economic success although there is no agreement about the precise meaning of sustainable development one idea which is increasingly in good currency is that sustainable development requires that the stock of capital that one generation passes on to the next be maintained or enhanced further this stock of capital is seen by some to comprise two elements manufactured capital and natural capital the extent to which these are believed to be substitutes or complements is one factor which separates the neoclassical school from some of its critics a premise of this paper is that if capital theory is relevant to sustainable development then it should also be helpful in developing indicators however even within the normal confines of economics capital theory is not a homogeneous body of analysis therefore an exploration of capital theory and its relevance to sustainable development can be expected to generate various perspectives on those measures most useful for gauging the sustainability of economic activity it is these linkages between capital theory in various schools of thought and possible indicators of sustainable development that are the subject of this paper

the terms of trade and the current account the harberger laursen metzler effect the paper examines the effect of terms of trade changes on a small country s spending and current account assuming optimizing behavior in an intertemporal framework with perfect international capital mobility a temporary future terms of trade deterioration implies a deterioration improvement of the trade balance whereas a permanent terms of trade deterioration has an ambiguous effect depending on the rate of time preference nominal and real variables are considered via exact price indexes two periods and an infinite horizon are examined

is there a j curve abstract if the response of the value of the trade balance to movements in the real exchange rate is described by a j curve then a real depreciation initially worsens a balance of trade deficit only improving it over time this paper investigates whether a j curve can be detected in the last twenty five years of american data no statistically reliable evidence of a stable j curve is detected the model is checked extensively to support this finding

sources of fluctuations in real and nominal exchange rates this paper attempts to distinguish empirically real versus nominal sources of fluctuations in real and nominal exchange rates the distinction is obtained by imposing the following restriction on the bivariate vector autoregression of real and nominal exchange rates over the current flexible rate period nominal shocks are required to have no permanent effect on the level of the real exchange rate given this identification scheme the author analyzes the dynamic effects and relative importance of real and nominal shocks with regards to exchange rates the findings indicate that real shocks dominate nominal shocks for both exchange rate series over short and long frequencies copyright 1992 by mit press

bargaining and search with recall a two period model with complete information two standard results of previous bargaining models state that delay is generally not expected to occur under complete information and bargaining outcome depends crucially on the bargainers intrinsic characteristics that determine their reservation prices and in general bargainers with better reservation prices tend to get better outcomes this paper considers a bilateral bargaining problem with complete information in which one of the bargainers the buyer is allowed to search while bargaining more importantly we assume that the buyer is allowed to recall past outside offers we find that quite contrary to the standard results of previous complete information bargaining models complete information renders no guarantee for immediate resolution of bargaining and the effect of changing the buyer s search cost on each player s bargaining outcome is unpredictable the major driving force of these two results is the assumption that the buyer can recall past outside offers

working time reduction policy in a sustainable economy criteria and options for its design abstract reducing per capita consumption particularly amongst high income groups is often deemed necessary to reduce the environmental impacts of the global economy far from implying a necessary reduction in wellbeing some research suggests this could actually improve it as reduced expenditure means a reduced need for income and hence paid work then there is the possibility for average working hours to fall providing increased leisure time in which to pursue happiness through less consumption intensive but more time consuming ways to date however there has been little critical discussion of the details of what policy might need to cover to allow and encourage substantial working time reduction in a way that successfully reconciles these environmental and wellbeing goals this article addresses this gap in the literature it begins by reviewing the conditions under which working time reduction could bring environmental and wellbeing benefits it then presents examples of innovative voluntary working time policies from the netherlands and belgium drawing these elements together the article presents a new green life course approach for working time policy design it argues that as a complement to more conventional working time policies this could be a valuable tool to combine environmental and wellbeing goals

real exchange rate behavior the recent float from the perspective of the past two centuries using annual data spanning two centuries for dollar sterling and franc sterling real exchange rates we find strong evidence of mean reverting real exchange rate behavior using simple stationary autoregressive models estimated on prefloat data we easily outperform nonstationary real exchange rate models in dynamic forecasting exercises over the recent float such stationary univariate equations explain 60 80 percent of the in sample variation in real exchange rates although the degree of short run persistence may be high the econometric estimates imply a half life of shocks to the real exchange rate of about 6 years for dollar sterling and a little under 3 years for franc sterling

explaining saving investment correlations national saving and investment rates are highly positively correlated in virtually all countries this is puzzling as it apparently implies a low degree of international capital mobility this paper shows that the observed positive correlation between national saving and investment rates arises naturally within a quantitatively restricted equilibrium model with perfect mobility of financial and physical capital the model is consistent with the fact that saving investment correlations are larger for larger countries but are still substantial for small countries further the model is consistent with the finding that current account deficits tend to be associated with investment booms copyright 1993 by american economic association

productivity shocks the real exchange rate and the euro puzzle abstract this paper utilizes a large country open economy intertemporal model to obtain the effects of alternative types of productivity shocks on the real exchange rate it then explores the conditions under which the model is consistent with the large swings in the real value of the euro the main theoretical conclusion is that the effect of a productivity shock on the real exchange rate can change signs depending on whether the shock applies to the productivity of new capital or old existing capital the growth accounting literature suggests that the underlying reason s for us productivity growth changed abruptly between the 1995 2001 and 2002 2004 intervals in the earlier period increases in the productivity of new capital were relatively more important while increases in the productivity of old capital completely dominated in the later period thus the model appears to be consistent with the abrupt switch from negative to positive around 2002 in the correlation between the real value of the euro vis a vis the dollar and the us minus eu productivity growth differential

capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development an indicator of weak sustainability the measurement of sustainable development is not without considerable difficulties yet this should not detract from the positive advances that can be made in this direction in this paper we present one form that a weak sustainability indicator can take derived from a simple but intuitive savings rule it incorporates the idea that the level of overall capital stock should be non decreasing although subject to qualification at this stage some interesting results emerge from the application of the rule to 18 countries

testing for absolute purchasing power parity abstract purchasing power parity ppp is an equilibrium condition equating the nominal exchange rate between two countries with the relative price of an identical bundle of goods in each country previous time series researchers use price indices to study ppp so they test relative ppp we use new data that measures price levels so we test absolute ppp price levels provide a test of absolute ppp because unlike price indices price levels do not contain a base period in which the nominal exchange rate equals the price ratio by construction we find support for absolute ppp

can exchange rate variations or trade policy alter the equilibrium current account abstract paul krugman has pointed out that much work needs to be done before the intertemporal open economy model can replace the open economy is lm model as a guide to policy making the objective here is to take a step in this direction by examining if an exogenous increase in world demand for home goods as via trade policy can improve the equilibrium current account within an open economy intertemporal model in the process the paper explores the theoretical issue as to whether a variation in the real exchange rate can alter the difference between saving and investment the key idea is that uncovered interest parity plus some degree of mean reversion in the real exchange rate imply that a modern version of the laursen metzler harberger effect is operative the result is that a policy induced increase in the trade balance will alter the real exchange rate which in turn increases the difference between home saving and investment and thereby improves the equilibrium current account

exchange rate mean reversion from real shocks within an intertemporal equilibrium model abstract the post bretton woods era has been characterized by real exchange rates that exhibit mean reversion with mixed evidence as to whether this reversion is partial ppp never holds or essentially complete this paper generates these stylized facts theoretically by synthesizing a simple intertemporal open economy model with the elasticities approach to the current account a central feature of the model is the existence of non traded goods the model can generate partial or approximately complete mean reversion for the real exchange rate depending on parameter values if innovations in output are made up of permanent and temporary components in addition temporary output shocks generate a type of hysteresis wherein the short run path for the exchange rate permanently alters its long run equilibrium value

long run purchasing power parity is it for real in this paper we re examine the purchasing power parity concept using data from the recent experience with floating exchange rates in particular we utilise the recently developed multivariate cointegration methodology to test for a long run relationship between exchange rates and relative prices and also to test for the proportionality of the exchange rate with respect to relative prices in contrast to much other research we demonstrate that there is a long run relationship between a number of bilateral u s dollar exchange rates and their corresponding relative prices the proportionality of the exchange rate to relative prices does not however receive support from the data this finding may be attributable to the use of measured price series rather than the true series

an approximate solution to rent seeking contests with private information abstract we propose an approximate solution to rent seeking contests in which participants have heterogeneous and private valuations the procedure only requires common knowledge about the mean of the distribution of valuations we obtain a closed form expression for an agent s level of investment and subject it to comparative statics analysis we then assess the performance of the model and find that the proposed solution provides a remarkably effective approximation of the optimal solution for a wide range of parameter specifications

3 d sustainability an approach for priority setting in situation of conflicting interests towards a sustainable development abstract this paper aims to provide a new approach to objectively assess hierarchies and priority setting in the relationship between environmental social and economic sustainability within sustainable development after a literature review several widely used conceptual figures diagrams describing this relationship were assessed using swot analyses in order to identify the major weaknesses in these pictorial descriptions based on the findings a new concept called 3 d sustainability has been developed and is presented visually as well as is described in the text this concept introduces and ranks criteria for the assessment of hierarchies within and conflicts of interests between social environmental and economic sustainability the three dimensions of sustainability these criteria are applied to several existing hierarchies and solutions to conflicts of interests based on the swot analyses the main shortcomings of the widely used conceptual figures were identified as 1 misinterpretation of embeddings 2 misjudgement of equity between the three dimensions of sustainability 3 a lack of expression of limitations and 4 lack of adequate decision support these shortcomings are overcome theoretically and in practice by 3 d sustainability a slightly more complex but conceptually richer figure than the widely used conceptual figures assessed in particular the shift of the burden of proof within the three sustainability dimensions is argued as a main solution the application of the criteria of 3 d sustainability to several real examples indicates its usefulness in decision support while justifying more sustainable hierarchies and solutions in the settlement of conflicts of interests within the three sustainability dimensions

environmentally sustainable household consumption from aggregate environmental pressures to priority fields of action unsustainable consumption patterns of the north or rather of the global affluent consumers class have been identified by agenda 21 as one of the key driving forces behind the unsustainable development however neither accounting based on the system of national accounts sna nor household economics provide the proper instruments to assess the environmental impact of household decision making eco efficiency assessments as familiar in the business sector provide no appropriate tool for households as an alternative an environmental space based assessment scheme is suggested covering the major pressures on the environment caused by household decisions the methodology is used twice once to analyse the environmental relevance of the main activity clusters of household consumption and once to identify the dominant acts of consumption within each cluster the latter provide the basis for deriving environmental performance indicators a rough analysis of household influence potentials permits to identify housing eating and mobility as the three priority fields for action for minimising the environmental impact of households extending the influence analysis actor matrixes are derived allocating influence and thus responsibility for environmental pressures to different groups of economic agents

real exchange rates under the gold standard purchasing power parity is one of the most important equilibrium conditions in international macroeconomics empirically it is also one of the most hotly contested numerous recent studies for example have sought to determine the validity of purchasing power parity using data from the post bretton woods float and have reached different conclusions we assert that most such studies are flawed for two reasons first the post 1973 data contain by definition only a very limited amount of the low frequency information relevant for examination of long run parity second the dynamic econometric techniques used to model deviations from parity are typically quite crude with respect to admissible low frequency dynamics both deficiencies are rectified in the present paper with dramatic results we construct a new data set of 16 real exchange rates covering more than a century of the classic gold standard period and we study deviations from parity using long memory models that allow for subtle forms of mean

an aggregate resource efficiency perspective on sustainability a sustainable value application to the eu 15 countries the sustainable value approach integrates the efficiency with regard to environmental social and economic resources into a monetary indicator it gained significant popularity as evidenced by diverse applications at the corporate level however its introduction as a measure adhering to the strong sustainability paradigm sparked an ardent debate this study explores its validity as a macroeconomic strong sustainability measure by applying the sustainable value approach to the eu 15 countries concretely we assessed environmental social and economic resources in combination with the gdp for all eu 15 countries from 1995 to 2006 for three benchmark alternatives the results show that several countries manage to adequately delink resource use from gdp growth furthermore the remarkable difference in outcome between the national and eu 15 benchmark indicates a possible inefficiency of the current allocation of national resource ceilings imposed by the european institutions additionally by using an effects model we argue that the service degree of the economy and governmental expenditures on social protection and research and development are important determinants of overall resource efficiency finally we sketch out three necessary conditions to link the sustainable value approach to the strong sustainability paradigm

does decreasing working time reduce environmental pressures new evidence based on dynamic panel approach abstract there is a growing interest in the correlation between working time and environmental pressures but prior empirical studies were mostly focused on static methods within limited country groups to fill the gap this study aims to stimulate the discussion by distinguishing between different time periods for developed and developing country groups respectively in particular we contribute to a further understanding of the environmental effects of working time reduction policies by comparing the differences under the dynamic framework of system generalized method of moments we applied this dynamic panel regression approach for 55 countries worldwide over the period 1980 2010 and employing carbon emissions per capita as the environmental indicator in general results confirmed the significant relationship between hours of work and environmental impacts in developed economies although this is not the case for the developing counterparts interestingly the significant correlations for the developed country group turned from positive during the first sub period 1980 2000 to negative during the second sub period 2001 2010 connecting these results with previous literature we proposed the reasons of rebound energy use derived from certain leisure activities which were more energy intensive if excessive non working time provided

graduate education in ecological economics abstract interest in graduate education in ecological economics is increasing however no formal plan of study for a phd in ecological economics has been disseminated the lack of a formal plan is problematic as the field of ecological economics matures interest grows and new programs are being developed this paper attempts to fill a void by creating a program of study addressing the proficiencies a graduate student in ecological economics should have upon completion of his her phd based on the us educational system the plan of study presented in this paper has been developed to make the graduate of an ecological economics program as competitive on the labor market as students awarded traditional economics degrees the plan i describe is created to meet the requirements necessary for a phd in ecological economics further fields of specialization are suggested to complement the core of an ecological economics program to enhance the education process and to give the student with an ecological economics degree a higher level of marketability

bargaining and search with incomplete information about outside options abstract this paper considers a model of bargaining in which the seller makes offers and the buyer can search at a cost for an outside option the outside option cannot be credibly communicated and the seller s offer is recallable by the buyer for one period there are essentially two equilibrium regimes for sufficiently high search cost the game ends immediately otherwise the search occurs in equilibrium compared to the case where the buyer can communicate his outside option the seller is worse off and the game results in search for a smaller set of values of the search cost i e less equilibrium delay c72

the new open economy macroeconomics a survey since the 1995 publication of obsteld and rogoff s redux model there has been an outpouring of research on open economy dynamic general equilibrium models that incorporate imperfect competition and nominal rigidities this paper offers an interim survey of this recent literature 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

a regulatory framework for a policy of sustainability lessons from the neo liberal school abstract in this paper targets institutions and policy measures for describing and implementing sustainable development are evaluated in terms of their conformity with the economic framework of a market system from the viewpoint of neo liberal economic thinking as conceived by the german freiburg school of economists a general set of criteria is developed it includes issues of operationalization and legitimation of goals as well as institutional and instrumental issues on this basis general rules for designing an ecological framework guaranteeing the greatest possible degree of conformity with a market system are derived the concrete application of these rules leads to recommendations for a policy of sustainability with respect to the setting of goals the establishment of institutions as well as the use of appropriate instruments

sustainable growth criteria minimum benchmarks and scenarios for employment and the environment abstract the relationship of economic growth and environmental impact has spurred fierce debates between growth optimists referring to the phenomenon of the environmental kuznets curve and pessimists referring to the limits to growth however no operational set of simple criteria has been developed so far to assess the sustainability of a given growth pattern this is all the more true for measures combining environmental and social criteria the paper undertakes to sketch out such criteria and to assess them by applying them to transdiciplinary sustainability scenarios and model simulations with panta rhei one of the most complex models of the german economy theoretical considerations as well as the empirical work with the model demonstrate that there are indeed trade offs between economic growth and environmental impacts and a positive correlation of growth and employment nonetheless it is still possible to develop carefully orchestrated strategies that combine economic competitiveness low unemployment rates and an easing of the pressure on the environment social and technical innovation reduced working time a modernised social security system green taxes and salary increases proportional to labour productivity growth are essential parts of any such strategy the triple effectiveness of such strategies regarding environmental social and economic sustainability is demonstrated by the model runs

the role of exchange rates in a popular model of international trade abstract this paper examines the empirical relationship between the real effective exchange rate and the aggregate real trade balance for five major oecd countries in the post bretton woods era a variety of parametric and non parametric techniques are used there is little evidence that the exchange rate significantly affects the trade balance

real interest rates home goods and optimal external borrowing the paper investigates the optimal time path of consumption and external borrowing in the dependent economy model the small country faces given world prices and a given world real interest rate the presence of a home goods sector implies that the relevant real interest rate appropriate to consumption decisions depends on the rate of change of the real price of home goods the paper shows how transitory disturbances in output or in the world real interest rate affect the time profile of consumption and the trade balance in particular it is shown that the presence of a home goods sector dampens the consumption effects of changes in the world interest rate

the growth discourse growth policy and sustainable development two thought experiments abstract this paper addresses three aspects of growth the discourse the policy and the impacts the growth discourse claims that the central factor for social economic political and environmental progress is economic growth it is assumed to create wealth and provide the necessary means for social and environmental purposes on the basis of the growth discourse different growth policies can be derived based on different economic and political ideologies in order to reveal the implications of de facto degrowth two thought experiments are conducted for physical and economic end to growth strategies the latter is capable of meeting environmental objectives but implies significant social tensions and hardships and calls for transition strategies consisting of carefully designed steps