Riso, Sara, (2016), “Avoiding The Quick Fix Approach To Solving Youth Unemployment”, Social Europe, 13 Απριλίου A key priority for EU policy makers is to combat high levels of youth unemployment. Supporting young people to start a new business is increasingly regarded as a way to achieve this goal. And yet the understanding of what drives the success and failure of youth entrepreneurship policies remains incomplete. In a rush to deliver …Read More

Di Comite, Francesco, Thisse, Jacques-François, Vandenbussche, Hylke, (2016), “Demand decomposition in trade: Quality and taste”, Voxeu, 12 Απριλίου The trade literature has long focused on firms’ productivity as an explanation for export performance. But what about the demand side? This column looks at firms’ appeal in terms of quality and consumer taste. Using Belgian firm-level data, it suggests that tastes could account for 45% of the variation in export quantities across countries. Σχετικές …Read More

Van Parijs, Philippe, (2016), “Basic Income And Social Democracy”, Social Europe, 11 Απριλίου The idea of an unconditional basic income is in fashion. From Finland to Switzerland, from San Francisco to Seoul, people talk about it as they have never done. Twice before, basic income was the object of a real public debate, albeit briefly and limited to one country at a time. In both episodes, the centre left played a …Read More

Clougherty, Joseph A., Duso, Tomaso, Seldeslachts, Jo, (2016), “Deterrence in EU merger policy”, VoxEU, 9 Απριλίου Though there is a consensus that competition is welfare enhancing, it is less clear whether competition policy effectively stimulates competition. This column presents new findings on the deterrence effects of merger policy in the EU. The evidence shows that initial phase remedies uniquely involve deterrence in the European context, while other policy actions do …Read More

Wren-Lewis, Simon, (2016), ” The Financial Crisis, Austerity And The Drift From The Centre”, SocialEurope, 8 Απριλίου There are two obvious points here. First, the much more serious divisions within the Conservatives appear to be over Europe, which also appear completely unconnected to the financial crisis. Second, which I will return to at the end, is the extent to which the financial crisis and austerity are linked.(…) One interesting question for me is how much the …Read More

Bofinger, Peter, (2016), “Two views of the EZ Crisis: Government failure vs market failure”, Voxeu, 08 Απριλίου Diagnosing the EZ Crisis is a critical first step towards developing a consensus on how the monetary union should be fixed. This column contrasts views that place the blame mostly on markets with those that place the onus on governments. The fixes necessary for the survival of the euro are – correspondingly – more ‘market …Read More

Darvas, Zsolt, (2016), “The structural budget balance limbo”, Bruegel, 7 Απριλίου Revision of an estimate when new data becomes available is quite natural. Also, in some years the methodologies used to estimate potential output and the structural balance were revised. It is better to revise an initial estimate when it turns out later that it was incorrect than to continue using an incorrect estimate. But the problem is that the EU …Read More

Marinescu, Ioana, García Pérez, J. Ignacio, Vall Castello, Judit, (2016), “Fixed-term contracts hurt low-skilled workers in the long run”, Voxeu, 7 Απριλίου Short-term contracts are viewed as a way of stimulating youth employment. This column presents evidence that this is the case in Spain, but that such contracts are also detrimental to job stability and lifetime earnings. The negative effects get stronger the longer workers are exposed to fixed-term contracts. Σχετικές Αναρτήσεις Papadopoulos, …Read More