Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Volume 68 Issue 3 -

Issue of Review of Economics

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available November 30, 2017

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iii

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November 30, 2017

Reluctant to Reform? A Note on Risk-Loving Politicians and Bureaucrats

Tobias Thomas, Moritz Heß, Gert G. Wagner

Page range: 167-179

Abstract

From a political economy perspective, politicians often fail to implement structural reforms. In this contribution we investigate if the resistance to reform is based on the differences in the risk preferences of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. Based on three surveys among the German electorate, 175 members of the Federal German Parliament and 106 officials from German ministries, this is not the case. Since both politicians and bureaucrats have a higher risk appetite than the voters, their risk preferences cannot be seen as an explanation for the resistance to structural reform. Hence, it must be caused by other reasons. These could be interventions by veto players, wars of attrition by powerful interest groups, or reform logjams initiated. However, as during times of populist campaigns, the election process can put forth candidates with very high risk appetites, the constitutions of democracies turn out to be rather effective if hazardous actions and measures by political rookies and gamblers are inhibited by checks and balances.

November 9, 2017

Bilateral Trade Elasticity of Serbia and Her Trading Partners

Safet Kurtovic, Blerim Halili, Nehat Maxhuni

Page range: 181-204

Abstract

Almost all countries face the problems of trade balance, although they are more inherent in developing countries and economies in transition. A majority of economists adhere to a common opinion that real depreciation may lead to an improvement of trade balance. That said, countries encountering trade balance issues use real exchange rate depreciation in order to improve trade balance. In fact, this research refers to the assessment of bilateral elasticity effect of real exchange rate depreciation and the income on export and import demand function of Serbia and its nine leading partners. 2004Q1-2015Q4 data and ARDL approach have been used in this research. The results obtained show the presence of the J-curve in cases of Germany, Austria and Croatia. On the other hand, we examined if the Marshall-Lerner condition was fulfilled in the case of bilateral trade with Austria. Finally, we found that the elasticity of income has a greater effect on the export and import demand function, in relation to the elasticity of the exchange rate.

Publicly Available November 30, 2017

Beauty and Ugliness of Aggregation over Time: A Survey

Nlandu Mamingi

Page range: 205-227

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Abstract

This paper delivers an up-to-date literature review dealing with aggregation over time of economic time series, e.g. the transformation of high-frequency data to low frequency data, with a focus on its benefits (the beauty) and its costs (the ugliness). While there are some benefits associated with aggregating data over time, the negative effects are numerous. Aggregation over time is shown to have implications for inferences, public policy and forecasting.

About this journal

Welcome! As of 2016 the Review of Economics as well as all other journals of Lucius and Lucius Verlagsgesellschaft are published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg.

Aims and Scope
The Review of Economics (Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftswissenschaften) is a peer-reviewed general interest journal and publishes articles from all fields of economics.
Only articles with a strong policy focus are considered for publication. The Review of Economics will consider papers that are based on (i) a well defined theoretical model (ii) an empirical analysis or (iii) an experimental or (iv) an evidence-based framework.
The Review of Economics is also highly interested in survey articles on important policy issues.
Since the Review of Economics intends to deliver a forum for policy contributions and to influence the public debate we guarantee a quick and efficient referee process (the initial publication decision will be made within a maximum of 90 days). The editors may decide to publish papers without a referee process whenever authors send their submissions together with the referee reports and the decision letter of the previous submission and explain how they reacted to the reports. Accepted articles will be pre-published on the internet page of the journal as soon as they are accepted. Because the Review of Economics is not an e-Journal all articles also appear in a regular print version with some delay.

Partner Journal
Czech Journal of Economics and Finance

The Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (ISSN 0015-1920) is an English-language, double-blind refereed academic journal published in Prague since 1951. It devotes special attention to monetary economics, public finance, financial economics, and international economics, but it is open to high-quality papers from all fields of modern economics. The editors prefer empirically oriented papers, but do not exclude review articles or theoretical contributions provided that they are of high quality and relevant to the journal's aims.