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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Economics Versus Politics In Trade Policy, Daron Djerdjian
Economics Versus Politics In Trade Policy, Daron Djerdjian
Daron Djerdjian
Do economies of scale contribute to our understanding of trade policy or is ideology and inequality sufficient? We develop a unified theoretical framework that encompasses both strategic economic and political variables deemed to be important in explaining trade policy. We predict that an increase in the scale effect leads to restrictive trade policies in labor-abundant countries and liberal trade policies in capital-abundant countries. Using cross-country data on economies of scale, ideology, inequality and various measures of trade barriers we confirm our predictions and establish that a unified framework, which incorporates economies of scale in production, performs better in explaining trade …
Shooting On A Moving Target: Explaining European Bank Rates During The Interwar Period, Kirsten Wandschneider
Shooting On A Moving Target: Explaining European Bank Rates During The Interwar Period, Kirsten Wandschneider
Kirsten Wandschneider
This paper describes the monetary policy response of countries during the inter-war period. How did central banks react to the Great Depression? How did countries balance the externals demands of the gold standard with domestic policy pressures? What was the optimal level of international policy coordination? We use weekly data over the period 1925-1936 to estimate central bank rate reaction functions for a panel of 22 countries during the inter-war gold standard. The estimates suggest to us changing objectives for monetary policy. Countries moved away from the sole objective of convertibility and towards a more ‘modern’ monetary policy based on …