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Die verfasste Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Handelsstrategie Carry Trades. Grundlage dieser Strategie ist das Ausnutzen von Zinsunterschieden, welche zwischen zwei Währungsräumen vorherrschen, und einer Wechselkursanpassung, die diese Unterschiede nicht komplett kompensiert. Investiert ein Anleger beispielsweise in eine ausländische Währung mit höherem Zinsniveau, so müsste sich der Wechselkurs gemäß der Zinsparitätentheorie in der Folge so anpassen, dass der höhere Ertrag durch die Zinsen beim Rücktausch der Währung vollständig egalisiert wird. Ziel dieser Arbeit war eine empirische Untersuchung für die Währungen der G10 auf wöchentlicher Handelsbasis sowie die Konstruktion und Berücksichtigung von ex ante Sharpe-Ratios als Handelsindikator., This Dissertation deals with the trading strategy Carry Trades. The basis of this strategy is the exploitation of interest rate differentials which prevail between two currency areas and an exchange rate adjustment which does not completely compensate for these differences. For example, if an investor invests in a higher-interest-rate foreign currency the exchange rate would have to be adjusted in accordance with the interest rate parity so as to fully offset the higher return from interest rates when the currency is exchanged. The aim of this work was to empirically study the G10 currencies on a weekly trading basis and to construct and consider ex ante Sharpe ratios as a trading indicator.

Die Besteuerung internationaler Devisentransaktionen zur Begrenzung spekulativer Kapitalströme wird gegenwärtig im Rahmen der Globalisierungsdebatte verstärkt diskutiert. Wie wird diese so genannte Tobin-Steuer begründet? Wie könnte eine solche Steuer ausgestaltet werden? Welche Probleme sind mit der Einführung einer Tobin-Steuer verbunden?

Im Zusammenhang mit der Zuspitzung der Staatsschuldenkrise fur einzelne Euromitglieder wird immer wieder der Vorwurf einer destabilisierenden Spekulation laut. Der Beitrag gibt eine begriffliche Abgrenzung, stellt die verschiedenen Funktionen der Spekulation dar und zeigt die mikrookonomischen Zusammenhange stabilisierender und destabilisierender Aktivitaten auf. Dabei wird die besondere Bedeutung von Kreditsicherungsderivaten (CDS) fur die Anleihemarkte geklart und empirischen Hinweisen auf eine destabilisierende Spekulation nachgegangen.

In this paper, I analyze determinants of carry trade returns in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). I show that carry trades to CEE were lucrative due to interest rate spreads between the funding and investment currency from 2004 to 2006. They became unprofitable when liquidity risk and exchange rate volatility increased after 2007. The analysis suggests that the exchange rate regime of the CEE economy matters for carry trade returns. Overall, exchange rate stabilization, particularly via managed floats, seems to allow for the highest profit opportunities.

What is the role of large players” like hedge funds and other highly leveraged institutions in speculative attacks? In recent theoretical work, large players may induce an attack by an early move, providing information to smaller agents. In contrast, many observers argue that large players are in the rear. We propose a model that allows both the large player to move early in order to induce speculation by small players, or wait so as to benefit from a high interest rate prior to the attack. Using data on net positions of large” (foreigners) and small” (locals) players, we find that large players moved last in three attacks on the Norwegian krone (nok) during the 1990s: The ERM-crisis of 1992, the NOK-pressure in 1997, and after the Russian moratorium in 1998. In 1998 there was a contemporaneous attack on the Swedish krona (sek) in which large players moved early. Interest rates did not increase in Sweden so there was little to gain by a delayed attack.

We examine speculative attacks in a controlled laboratory environment featuring continuous time, size asymmetries, and varying amounts of public information. Attacks succeeded in 233 of 344 possible cases. When speculators have symmetric size and access to information: (a) weaker fundamentals increase the likelihood of successful speculative attacks and hasten their onset, and (b) contrary to some theory, success is enhanced by public access to information about either the net speculative position or the fundamentals. The presence of a larger speculator further enhances success, and experience with large speculators increases small speculators' response to the public information. However, giving the large speculator increased size or better information does not significantly strengthen his impact.

While virtually all modern models of exchange rate crises recognise that the decision to abandon an exchange rate peg depends on how harshly policy makers are willing to defend the regime, they virtually never model how the exchange rate is defended. In this paper we incorporate both the mechanics of speculation and a defence policy against speculation in the well-known currency crisis model of Morris and Shin (American Economic Review 88 (1998) 587-97). After adding these natural elements, our model outperforms standard currency crisis models at explaining stylised features of speculative attacks. Moreover, our model connects the theoretical currency crisis literature to an empirical literature on exchange market pressure, by bringing together its building blocks: exchange rate changes plus counter-acting defence policies. We use this connection to confirm our model's predictions empirically.

We extend the model by DeGrauwe and Grimaldi (2006, EER) by currency transaction taxes. This model explains the exchange rate behavior by the interaction of heterogeneous traders who display either trend chasing behavior or rely on a return of the exchange rate back to its arbitrage free fundamental value. Within this model framework we can show analytically that the steady-state of the original model is unaffected by the transaction tax rate. We inferred from numerical simulations that the transaction tax is able to reduce the number of speculative equilibria to zero. Moreover, we show that the tax will lead to a faster convergence of the system back to its fundamental steady state.

Motivated by the observed international reserve hoarding behavior in the post-1997 crisis period, we explore the Mrs Machlup's wardrobe hypothesis and the related keeping up with the Joneses argument. It is conceived that, in addition to psychological reasons, holding a relatively high level of international reserves reduces the vulnerability to speculative attacks and promotes growth. A stylized model is constructed to illustrate this type of hoarding behavior. The relevance of the keeping up with the Joneses effect is examined using a few plausible empirical specifications and data from 10 East Asian economies. Panel-based regression results are suggestive of the presence of the Joneses effect; especially in the post-1997 crisis period. Individual economy estimation results, however, show that the Joneses effect varies across economies.

The coordination channel has been proposed as a means by which foreign exchange market intervention may be effective, in addition to the traditional portfolio balance and signaling channels. If strong and persistent misalignments of the exchange rate are caused by non-fundamental influences, such that a return to equilibrium is hampered by a coordination failure among fundamentals-based traders, then central bank intervention may act as a coordinating signal, encouraging stabilizing speculators to re-enter the market at the same time. We develop this idea in the framework of a simple microstructural model of exchange rate movements, which we then estimate using daily data on the dollar-mark exchange rate and on Federal Reserve and Bundesbank intervention operations. The results are supportive of the existence of a coordination channel of intervention effectiveness.

Self-fulfilling expectations are commonly believed to play an important role in the transmission of currency crises across countries. However, existing models that use multiple equilibria to illustrate the importance of such expectations have many undesirable features. This paper presents a new mechanism, based on the incomplete information framework of Morris and Shin (AER, 1998), through which self-fulfilling expectations can generate contagion. If speculators expect contagion across markets to occur, they have an incentive to trade in both currencies to take advantage of this correlation. These actions, in turn, link the two markets in such a way that a sharp devaluation of one currency will be propagated to the other market and will fulfill the original expectations. Even though the resulting model has multiple equilibria, it places restrictions on observable variables that are broadly consistent with existing empirical evidence.

In currency exchange markets, there is a conflict between individual decisions and the socially optimal solution. Whereas agents have a coordination motive to take the same position, at the social level effective market coordination per se is not socially valuable, and the central bank aims at driving agents? actions as close as possible to the economic fundamental state. Some studies argue that it might be better to withhold public information because its potential to serve as a focal point induces agents to exaggerate the importance of public announcements. This paper shows that public information should always be provided with maximum precision, but under certain condition not to all agents. Restrictions on the degree of publicity are a better instrument with which to prevent the negative welfare effects of public announcements than restrictions on their precision are. The optimal degree of publicity is always positive.

This paper explains a currency crisis as an outcome of a switch in how monetary policy and fiscal policy are coordinated. The paper develops a model of an open economy in which monetary policy starts active, fiscal policy starts passive and, in a particular state of nature, monetary policy switches to passive and fiscal policy switches to active. The probability of the regime switch is endogenous and changes over time together with the state of the economy. The regime switch is preceded by a sharp increase in interest rates and causes a jump in the exchange rate. The model predicts that currency composition of public debt affects dynamics of macroeconomic variables. Furthermore, the model is consistent with evidence from recent currency crises, in particular small seigniorage revenues.

This paper examines the ability of a policy maker to control equilibrium outcomes in a global coordination game; applications include currency attacks, bank runs, and debt crises. A unique equilibrium is known to survive when the policy is exogenously fixed. We show that, by conveying information, endogenous policy re-introduces multiple equilibria. Multiplicity obtains even in environments where the policy is observed with idiosyncratic noise. It is sustained by the agents coordinating on different interpretations of, and different reactions to, the same policy choices. The policy maker is thus trapped into a position where both the optimal policy and the coordination outcome are dictated by self-fulfilling market expectations.

Since financial derivatives are key instruments for risk taking as well as risk reduction, it is only straightforward to examine their role in currency crises. This paper addresses this issue by investigating the impact of currency futures trading on the underlying exchange rates. After a discussion of trading mechanisms and trader types, the linkage between futures trading activity and spot market turbulence is modelled using a VAR-GARCH approach for the exchange rates of Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea and Switzerland in terms of the US dollar. The empirical results indicate that there is a positive relationship between currency futures trading activity and spot volatility. Moreover, in the case of four out of the total of five currencies discussed in this paper, futures trading activity adds significantly to spot volatility.

A test of speculative efficiency on the foreign exchange markets of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak republic was unable to identify a cointegration relationship between forward and spot rates against the euro for the period between 1999 and mid-2002. Econometric studies confirm the existence of a time-variable exchange rate premium in all of the above countries. However, information and transaction costs also appear to be responsible for the observed deviations from speculative efficiency. The segmentation of the foreign exchange markets is likely to hamper the coordination of national monetary and foreign exchange policies within ERM II. In addition, this segmentation increases uncertainty in setting the central rate against the euro. Im Rahmen eines Tests der spekulativen Effizienz auf den Devisenmärkten Polens, der Tschechischen Repubik, Ungarns und der Slowakei kann für den Beobachtungszeitraum von 1999 bis Mitte 2002 keine Kointegrationsbeziehung zwischen Termin- und Kassakursen gegenüber dem Euro nachgewiesen werden. Ökonometrische Untersuchungen bestätigen die Existenz einer zeitvariablen Wechselkursprämie in allen genannten Ländern. Darüber hinaus scheinen aber auch Informations- und Transaktionskosten verantwortlich zu sein für die beobachteten Abweichungen von der spekulativen Effizienz. Die Segmentierung der Devisenmärkte dürfte die Koordinierung der nationalen Geld- und Währungspolitiken innerhalb des WKM II erschweren. Zusätzlich erhöht sie die Unsicherheit bei der Festlegung des Leitkurses gegenüber dem Euro.

Despite the fact that Argentina has been suffering from a recession for years, the timing and severity of the recent currency crisis surprised most observers. This paper analyzes the role of fundamentals and self-fulfilling speculation in the Argentinean crisis. Arguing within a theoretical model of a fixed exchange rate system that allows for multiple equilibria, we show that the crisis, while being associated with weak and deteriorating fundamentals, cannot be explained by these macroeconomic factors alone. Estimating a univariate Markovswitching model, this paper shows that shifts in agents? beliefs did indeed also play a crucial role.

In mid-January 2003 a severe speculative attack was launched against the exchange rate of the Hungarian forint. The attack was very unusual in the history of foreign exchange speculations, since it was aimed at enforcing the appreciation — and not the depreciation — of the currency targeted. The specific nature of this kind of speculation is closely related to Hungary’s accession to the European Union in general and to EMU in particular. Since the other Central and Eastern European acceding countries face similar problems and challenges, the Hungarian experience may involve some instructive lessons on monetary and economic policy for them too.

The Tobin tax is in high demand for many groups. Despite its popularity, research has not yet made full use of available insights from the recent microstructure literature. The role of banks in foreign exchange trading is quite different from what proponents usually assume. The most probable decisive group for shorter-term exchange rate movements is asset managers. They speculate under comparatively longer horizons than FX dealers although they also tend to behave short-termist. There is no tax rate that could influence their behavior and at the same time keep the desired high liquidity. Thus no uniform proportional Tobin tax can reach its goals.

Im Rahmen eines Tests der spekulativen Effizienz auf den Devisenmärkten Polens, der Tschechischen Repubik, Ungarns und der Slowakei kann für den Beobachtungszeitraum von 1999 bis Mitte 2002 keine Kointegrationsbeziehung zwischen Termin- und Kassakursen gegenüber dem Euro nachgewiesen werden. Ökonometrische Untersuchungen bestätigen die Existenz einer zeitvariablen Wechselkursprämie in allen genannten Ländern. Darüber hinaus scheinen aber auch Informations- und Transaktionskosten verantwortlich zu sein für die beobachteten Abweichungen von der spekulativen Effizienz. Die Segmentierung der Devisenmärkte dürfte die Koordinierung der nationalen Geld- und Währungspolitiken innerhalb des WKM II erschweren. Zusätzlich erhöht sie die Unsicherheit bei der Festlegung des Leitkurses gegenüber dem Euro. A test of speculative efficiency on the foreign exchange markets of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak republic was unable to identify a cointegration relationship between forward and spot rates against the euro for the period between 1999 and mid-2002. Econometric studies confirm the existence of a time-variable exchange rate premium in all of the above countries. However, information and transaction costs also appear to be responsible for the observed deviations from speculative efficiency. The segmentation of the foreign exchange markets is likely to hamper the coordination of national monetary and foreign exchange policies within ERM II. In addition, this segmentation increases uncertainty in setting the central rate against the euro.

After massive attacks against the peso in January 2002 the Argentine government abandoned its currency board arrangement. The collapse of the Argentine exchange-rate system initiated a new discussion about the pros and cons of currency boards. Why did the Argentine currency board fail? What does its collapse reveal about the conditions that have to be fulfilled for a currency board to function smoothly? What consequences can be drawn from the Argentine case with regard to the currency boards of countries in central and eastern Europe?

The main objective of this paper is to understand the causes and symptoms of currency crises by reviewing its seminal literature, establishing its determinants, and outlining some of the relevant issues. The paper highlights the need to comprehend the process, which may lead to the inconsistency of the policies and render the situation favourable for a speculative attack. This involves, broadening the determinants of exchange rate crises beyond pure economic fundamentals through incorporating non-economic factors, such as political incentives on macroeconomic policy making. In effect, the review accentuates upon the need to develop a model that bridges the gap between the conventional and non-conventional determinants of a currency crisis.

This paper uses Markov switching models to study short-run movements of the Polish zloty and speculative phenomena in Poland, that is, to investigate whether the exchange rate is "contaminated" by a speculative bubble. The zloty movements are examined in terms of so-called long swings - periods of prevailing appreciation and depreciation of the exchange rate. Speculative fluctuations of the zloty are investigated within two different frameworks: the uncovered interest parity hypothesis and a model of a zloty bubble. The results obtained suggest that the zloty exchange rate is characterised by interweaving periods of appreciation and depreciation with different durations. The uncovered interest parity hypothesis does not hold. Periods were identified, in which the zloty exhibited "bubble properties".

Once you allow for persistence in macroeconomic variables, two aspects of exchange rate credibility emerge whose relative importance can vary over time. Hence, the effect of policy measures on interest rate differentials becomes ambiguous. In this paper, a Markov-switching VAR that allows for parameter shifts across regimes is employed to test the hypothesis of regime-dependent determination of credibility for major EMS countries. The model separates two regimes that are distinct with respect to the time series properties of the interest rate spread. Regime-dependent impulse response functions reveal substantial differences in the response of spreads to macroeconomic shocks across regimes.

This paper analyzes the implications of currency crises in a model with unique equilibrium. Starting from a typical multiple equilibria model with self-fulfilling expectations we introduce noisy information, following Morris/Shin (1999). Under certain conditions for the noise parameter, all equilibria but one are eliminated so that we are able to derive comparative statics and subsequent policy devices. We can show that if the a priori expected fundamental state of the economy is good, there is an incentive for the government to disseminate very precise information. However, a high precision of public information increases the danger of an attack if ex-ante expected fundamentals are bad. Moreover, we find that the influence of private information's precision is exactly the reverse.

International capital markets are far from functioning perfectly. During the last decade, they overshot both ways: The earlier boom of private capital flows to emerging market economies (EMEs) turned out to be the prelude to the drama of seriously impaired access to foreign capital in the late 1990s. Current concerns are that the next boomand- bust cycle is in the making, after EMEs have been surprisingly quick in returning to international capital markets. Capital market failures notwithstanding, it is hypocritical to blame foreign investors for having caused financial crises. Recent crisis episodes do not support the view that pure contagion has affected EMEs with prudent macroeconomic policies and sound financial sectors. Economic fundamentals do matter still. However, increased international capital mobility implies that foreign (and domestic!) investors react more quickly and drastically to any news, be it bad or good news. Domestic policy failures underlying recent financial crises differed considerably. Brazil experienced a conventional currency crisis, caused by inconsistent macroeconomic policies. Korea was characterized by structural weaknesses such as a highly leveraged corporate sector and fragile financial institutions, and by a policy-induced composition of external financing that rendered the country extremely vulnerable to changing expectations of foreign investors. A differentiated analysis of international capital markets is required in order to assess the role of private foreign capital in financing EMEs on a sustainable basis. The reaction to financial crises differed between major types of foreign investors. Notably foreign direct investment has proven to be fairly stable. Hence, the structure of capital inflows matters for the sustainability of external financing. It depends on exogenous factors beyond the control of EMEs and economic policies pursued in EMEs whether external financing will be provided on a more sustainable basis in the future. As concerns the former, sustainable financing would be encouraged if longer-term engagements by pension funds were supported by deregulation in developed countries, and if reforms in the international financial architecture resulted in prudent bank lending. As concerns the latter, external financing requirements must be kept within reasonable limits, and capital inflows should be restructured towards relatively stable items. The timing and sequencing of capital account liberalization is crucially important to reduce the risk of a sudden reversal in capital flows. The good news for EMEs from recent capital market developments is threefold: First, EMEs are not denied access to foreign capital for long even after major economic crises. Second, in contrast to widespread belief, international capital flows are not a zero-sum game, from which only a few large and advanced EMEs can derive benefits. Third, while openness to global capital markets implies hard policy choices, it largely depends on EMEs themselves to which extent they will benefit from capital inflows.

The recent currency crises in several emerging markets have touched off a debate about their causes. Whereas some blame fickle speculators for triggering speculative attacks virtually at random, others argue that the typical currency crisis is attributable to myopic economic policies. This paper examines common patterns of a large number of balance-of-payments crises focusing on a comprehensive sample of 26 emerging markets.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die Ursachen von Finanzmarktkrisen anhand entsprechender Vorkommnisse in Thailand, Mexiko und Tschechien, um risikoreiche Konstellationen für Emerging Markets zu identifizieren. Als Modell wurde der Ansatz von Sachs/Tornell/Velasco (1996) gewählt, der durch Einbeziehung von Kreditrationierung und Haftungsbeschränkung erweitert und modifiziert wurde. Aus diesen Überlegungen heraus wurden Indikatoren für die Prognose von Währungskrisen abgeleitet und anhand der Beispiele Thailands, Mexikos und Tschechiens berechnet. This present paper studies the reasons for financial market crises on the background of recent examples of Thailand, Mexico and the Czech Republic. We are interested to identify risky constellations for emerging markets. As a model, we have chosen the approach of Sachs/Tornell/Velasco (1996), which we have modified and extended by incorporating credit rationing and limited liability aspects. From this thinking, we have derived indicators for the prediction of financial market crises. We have calculated the indicators for the cases of Thailand, Mexico and the Czech Republic.

We model the exchange rate market for a country that initially follows a band policy, as a four-stage sequential game of complete information, where a stochastic shock is realized in the last stage. Given a fixed cost of leaving the band, we show that three types of equilibria may exist, corresponding to different expectations by the public about the government retaining the band, (1) in all future states, (2) only in some future states, and (3) in none of the states. In case (2) a speculative attack occurs but is countered when the cost of countering it is not too high, leading to adverse shifts in fundamentals. We study the government’s incentives to abandon or retain the band, and to abandon the band preemptively before public expectations are revealed. The standard Krugman and Obstfeld models are obtained as special cases, respectively when we have regime collapse as a unique equilibrium, and when there are multiple equilibria and the game always progresses to stage 4.

Recent studies have conjectured that there may be a link between financial liberalization and financial instability in emerging economies. Most of these studies, however, do not investigate whether emerging economies are becoming structurally more vulnerable to currency and banking crises. In this paper, we argue that emerging economies are systematically becoming more susceptible to both currency and banking crises after FL. Using data for 27 emerging economies from 1973 to the present, univariate and multivariate analyses indicate that the likelihood of currency crises and banking crises increase after FL. In particular, liberalization allows more liquidity to enter an emerging economy, which finds its way into productive and speculative projects. What is common to both types of crises is a significant increase in speculative financing, thereby increasing the chance for borrower default. Thus, the outflow of international capital becomes more likely, and we find that the chance of either type of crisis grows faster in response to changes in short-term loans after FL than before. Similarly, the reactions to overvalued currencies are at least similar in terms of increasing probabilities of crises in the case of banking crises, or greater in the case of currency crises after FL as compared to before FL. Further, our results show that after FL the chance of a currency crisis declines over time, while the chance of a banking crisis increases.

The liberalization of capital accounts and the integration of financial markets in recent years have helped to spur growth in many emerging markets and have allowed global investors to diversify risks internationally. Furthermore, increased capita! mobility has helped to tame governments in their fiscal and monetary policies. Nevertheless, the Asian currency and financial crisis and its aftermath have revealed structural problems on the national as well as on the international level and have imposed significant costs on emerging markets as well as on the world economy. • Triggered by these developments, a broad international consensus has emerged to support reforms to strengthen the international financial system. The aim of these reforms will be to create an international financial system that captures the benefits of open and integrated financial markets, and at the same time minimizes the risk of financial crises to emerge and spread to other countries. While the former refers to the need for greater transparency, accountability and prudential regulation, the latter is concerned with the improvement of existing and the creation of new mechanisms for the prevention and resolution of financial crises. International institutions such as the IMF can contribute to the stability of the international financial system. A prominent proposal initially raised by the Clinton administration in fall 1998 designs the creation of a new crisis facility of the IMF to prevent contagion in financial markets. On its recent meeting of April 23, the IMF's Executive Board agreed to provide Contingent Credit Lines for its member countries. The goal of such a facility is to provide preventive credit lines to countries whose economies are fundamentally sound, but which are threatened by financial market contagion and which may lose access to capital markets. In the absence of contagion, these countries should therefore be able to rely on a sustained flow of capital from abroad. The new facility gives rise to a number of questions. First, the distinction between countries in need of ex ante policy adjustments and countries that follow sound economic policies, i.e., the eligibility for the new facility, must be resolved in advance. Second, projections about the likely financial requirements of such a facility and the consequences for the Fund's liquidity position are needed. Another issue relates to the question whether and how private and bilateral creditors should be involved in this new facility. Finally, there is a need for clear guidelines about the terms and conditions that would apply to this new facility. However, as shown in the paper, it will prove difficult to fulfill these criteria and to avoid additional problems related to a precautionary credit line. Based on this skeptical judgment, the paper explores a number of alternative means to foster the stability of the international financial system through a better involvement of private sector creditors. This could be achieved through the introduction of option-type mechanisms that would allow debtors to trigger liquidity support in the case of a crisis. A more radical approach would involve limits to creditors in cases when they would like to reduce their short-term exposure. Another avenue would comprise a reorganization of private claims, either by modifying bond contracts or by adapting bankruptcy procedures. The main task for policy makers, however, remains to increase transparency and improve supervision in financial markets and to pursue sound economic policies.

Real Wage Rigidities, Fiscal Policy, and the Stability of EMU in the Transition Phase. - EMU will start with eleven member countries as scheduled on January 1, 1999. The paper shows that the primacy of politics over economics in this decision could have serious consequences concerning the stability of EMU in the transition phase. Speculative attacks against currencies which are in economic distress due to asymmetric shocks can still happen. A speculative attack as such cannot force a country out of EMU. However, the country concerned might voluntarily decide to leave the system as the costs of staying inside EMU, e.g. due to further rising unemployment, become too large to bear.

Banking and balance of payments crises often happen quite simultaneously. We show that the impact of an expected devaluation on the net worth of commercial banks with a short open foreign exchange position speeds up the timing of a balance of payments crisis. We employ an asymmetric information framework in which domestic commercial banks have to pay a positive risk premium on the international capital market which is determined by their net worth. Some stylized facts from selected transition and developing countries are presented in order to gauge the empirical relevance of the effects that we stress.