Arendt, Daphne, (2016), “The Case For Universal Support For European Families”, Social Europe Journal, 1 Φεβρουαρίου Austerity measures introduced during the crisis have disproportionately concerned cuts in the measures that are most vital for reducing child poverty: cash and tax benefits, a new Eurofound report shows. Furthermore, there has been a move away from universal coverage towards more targeted support. Of course, it makes good sense for governments to target …Read More

F. Campos, Nauro, B Nugent, Jeffrey, (2016), “Labour market reforms, growth and inequality: Evidence from a new dataset”, Voxeu, 28 Ιανουαρίου Labour market liberalisation is one of the most important structural reforms, and yet one of the least well understood. The conventional view is that such reforms increase welfare and improve economic performance.For example, changes in employment laws that lower the costs of hiring and firing workers encourage job separations, increase job creation …Read More

Boot, Nuria, Huttl, Pia, (2016), “Lost in assumptions: assessing the economic impact of migrants”, Bruegel publications, 18 Ιανουαρίου What’s at stake: Many research institutes have estimated the economic impact of migrants, in particular regarding fiscal budgets and the labour market. These studies often give contradictory results. This blogs review looks at the different assumptions and approaches behind these results. Σχετικές Αναρτήσεις Carcea Carpus, Mihaela, Ciriaci, Daria, Lorenzani, Dimitri, Pontuch, Peter, …Read More

Arni, Patrick, Lalive, Rafael, van den Berg, Gerard, (2016), “Labour market policy: Parts of the picture are missing”, Voxeu, 11 Ιανουαρίου The standard empirical evaluations of labour market policy only consider the direct effects of single programmes on their participants. This column argues that this fails to capture important aspects of real-world labour market policy – policy regimes and strategies. Using Swiss data, it employs a novel empirical approach that concurrently examines the effects of …Read More

Berg, Andrew, Presbitero, Andrea, Felipe Zanna, Luis, (2016), “Public investment efficiency and growth”, Voxeu, 5 Ιανουαρίου What is the growth impact of an increase in the rate of public investment spending? And in particular, how does this depend on the efficiency of public investment spending? These questions have emerged in the debate about the need to bolster public investment to exit a low-growth, high-unemployment conundrum in Europe (e.g. Summers 2014, Teulings and Baldwin 2014, …Read More

Veugelers, Reinhilde, (2015), “Matching research and innovation policies in EU countries”, Bruegel publications, 22 Δεκεμβρίου Europe has lofty ambitions for building a socially and environmentally sustainable future on the basis of growth and prosperity through innovation. Despite these policies and pronouncements, Europe’s performance on innovation remains weak. In this context, Rienhilde Veugelers assesses whether the deployment of innovation policy instruments in EU countries matches their innovation capacity performance relative to …Read More

Ruhm, Christopher J.,  (2015), “Economic crises and mortality”, Voxeu, 29 Οκτωβρίου. Conventional wisdom tells us that health deteriorates when the economy weakens and improves when it strengthens. Some research tentatively agrees, but there is a marked dearth of challenges and robust research. This column presents new evidence suggesting that the reductions in mortality occurring during typical economic downturns also occur in periods of crisis, adding useful caveats for different types of …Read More

Jaumotte,  Florence,  Osorio Buitron, Carolina, (2015), “Union power and inequality”, VoxEU, 22 Οκτωβρίου Inequality in advanced economies has risen considerably since the 1980s, largely driven by the increase of top earners’ income shares. This column revisits the drivers of inequality, emphasising the role played by changes in labour market institutions. It argues that the decline in union density has been strongly associated with the rise of top income inequality and discusses the …Read More