Revisiting Rose's common currency debate

The main objective of this research is to revisit the estimation of the effect of a common currency on international trade by applying the new methodology proposed by Helpman, Melitz and Rubistein (2008) and incorporating tourism to the theoretical framework. Rose (2000) estimates an empirical model of bilateral trade, finding a significant coefficient for a currency union variable of 1.2, suggesting an effect of currency unions on trade of over a 200%. Rose (2000)’s finding did not receive full acceptance and further research was consequently devoted to find reasons of such high effect. This still remains as a major puzzle in the International Economics. Rose and Van Wincoop (2001) hold that there may still be some omitted factors that drives countries to both participate in currency unions and trade more. In this research a gravity equation for trade is estimated controlling by international tourism.Common currency, tourism, gravity equation

On the impact of exchange rate regimes on tourism

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the exchange rate arrangements on international tourism. The ambiguity of literature about the effect of exchange rate volatility contrasts with the magnitude of the impact of a common currency on trade. On the basis of a gravity equation we estimate a moderate effect of a currency union on tourism of almost 12%. Furthermore, we estimate a gravity equation for international trade, obtaining that the common currency effect on trade is reduced when tourism is introduced as a regressor. This suggests that tourism flows may contribute to explain the excessive magnitude of the estimated effect of a common currency on trade in this literature. Finally, we analyze the impact of several de facto exchange rate arrangements on tourism, finding that less flexible exchange rates promotes tourism flows.Tourism, Exchange Rate Regime, Common Currency

It is Hobbes, not Rousseau : an experiment on social insurance

We perform an experiment on social insurance to provide a laboratory replica of some important features of the welfare state. In the experiment, all individuals in a group decide whether to make a costly effort, which produces a random (independent) outcome for each one of them. The group members then vote on whether to redistribute the resulting and commonly known total sum of earnings equally amongst themselves. This game has two equilibria, if played once. In one of them, all players make effort and there is little redistribution. In the other one, there is no effort and nothing to redistribute. A solution to the repeated game allows for redistribution and high effort, by the threat to revert to the worst of these equilibria. Our results show that redistribution with high effort is not sustainable. The main reason for the absence of redistribution is that rich agents do not act differently depending on whether the poor have worked hard or not. There is no social contract by which redistribution may be sustained by the threat of punishing the poor if they do not exert effort. Thus, the explanation of the behavior of the subjects lies in Hobbes, not in Rousseau

FDI, Allocation of Talents and Differences in Regulation

This paper presents evidence on the effect of countries proximity in regulation on bilateral FDI flows. By exploiting the OECD International Direct Investment Statistics and data on nationwide regulation levels, we find a significant negative effect of the absolute value of the difference between countries indexes of regulation on the associated bilateral flows of FDIs, controlling for each country regulation level. Motivated by this evidence, we build a model where agents are heterogeneous and differ in their abilities to be entrepreneurs or workers. Entrepreneurs may engage in FDIs, which entails incurring additional fixed costs, one of which is the cost of learning the foreign regulation. In this framework, more similar regulations foster FDI, raise wages, output and productivity. The increase in productivity is the consequence of very efficient foreign entrepreneurs driving out of the market inefficient local firms, improving the allocation of talent in the economy as a whole.Multinational Firms, Heterogeneous Agents, Policy Harmonization

Employment Turnover and Unemployment Insurance

Two features distinguish European and US labor markets. First, most European countries have substantially more generous unemployment insurance. Second, the duration of unemployment and employment spells are substantially higher in Europe - employment turnover is lower. We show that self-insurance, i.e., saving and borrowing, is a good substitute for unemployment insurance when turnover is high as in the US. If the insurance system is less than perfectly actuarially fair, the employed median voter will prefer to self-insure instead of having unemployment insurance if turnover is high. We also show that high unemployment insurance make unemployed more willing to wait for a job with low separation rates. This could make both high turnover/low insurance (US) and low turnover/high insurance (Europe) stable equilibria. Low turnover also leads to a strong divergence between the long and short run interest of the employed. In abscence of devices such that the median voter can bind future voters to some level of insurance, the voting cycle must thus be long in order to support a high level of insurance.labor markets; unemployment insurance; employment turnover; self-insurance; median voter; stable equilibria

Who’s Afraid of a Globalized World? Foreign Direct Investments, Local Knowledge and Allocation of Talents

We study the distributional effects of globalization within a model of heterogeneous agents where both managerial talent and knowledge of the local economic environment are required in order to set up a firm in a given country. Therefore, agents willing to set up a firm in a foreign country need to incur a learning cost that depends on how different is the foreign entrepreneurial environments from the domestic one. In this context, we show that globalization fosters FDI and raises wages, output and productivity. Moreover, it benefits workers and highly talented multinational entrepreneurs, while harming low-ability domestic producers. The effects of openness follow from highly efficient foreign entrepreneurs driving inefficient local firms out of the market. We provide empirical evidence consistent with the implications of the model, showing a significant negative effect of the distance between nationwide regulations indexes on bilateral FDI flows.Multinational Firms, Heterogeneous Agents, Policy Harmonization