European Central Bank, (2016), “Annual Report 2015”, 7 April 2015 was a year of recovery for the euro area economy. Inflation, however, remained on a downward path. Against this backdrop, a key theme for the euro area in 2015 was strengthening confidence. Confidence among consumers to boost spending. Confidence among firms to resume hiring and investing. And confidence among banks to increase lending. This was essential to nurture the recovery …Read More
Kyriacou, Andreas P., (2016), “Individualism–collectivism, governance and economic development”, European Journal of Political Economy, March While an individualist society prizes personal control, autonomy and individual accomplishments, a collectivist one puts a premium on loyalty and cohesion and imposes mutual obligations in the context of in-groups. It has been argued that, in contrast to collectivism, individualism will promote economic development directly by sharpening individual incentives to invest, innovate and accumulate wealth. In this …Read More
Fidrmuc, Jan, (2015), “Political economy of fiscal unions”, European Journal of Political Economy, December Fiscal unions often use fiscal transfers to counter asymmetric shocks, but such transfers may be politically controversial. I present a model of a two-region fiscal union with region-specific shocks where the threat of secession imposes a limit on fiscal redistribution between regions. I show that both correlation of shocks across regions and their persistence over time are important …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 April 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. Relevant Posts Papadopoulos, …Read More
Marx, Paul, Schumacher, Gijs, (2016), “The effect of economic change and elite framing on support for welfare state retrenchment: A survey experiment”, Journal of European Social Policy, February How do economic downturns affect citizens’ support for welfare state retrenchment? Existing observational studies fail to isolate the effect of economic conditions and the effect of elite framing of these conditions. We therefore designed a survey experiment to evaluate how economic change …Read More
Rodriguez Palenzuela, Diego, Dees, Stéphane, (2016), “Savings and investment behaviour in the euro area”, European Central Bank, Occasional Paper Series No 167, January Although monetary union created the conditions for improving economic and financial integration in the euro area, in the context of the financial and sovereign crises, it has also been accompanied by the emergence of severe imbalances in savings and investment, credit and housing booms in some countries and the allocation …Read More
Schäfer, Larissa, (2016), “Forgive but not forget: the behaviour of relationship banks when firms are in distress”, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, March A new EBRD Working Paper studies whether relationship banks help firms in financial distress. Combining a new and direct measure of relationship lending with unique credit registry data, I examine the effect of relationship lending on ex-post loan performance. My findings demonstrate that the same firm is …Read More
Landesmann, Michael, Leitner, Sandra M., (2015), “Labour Mobility of Migrants and Natives in the European Union: An Empirical Test of the ‘Greasing of the Wheels’ Effect of Migrants”, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, August In the context of current developments of large refugee movements across Europe, it is important to study the impact of migration flows in the European economy. One aspect of this is the impact on mobility patterns (i.e. …Read More
Meldgaard, Henrik, Bundgaard, Jakob, Floristean, Alexandru, Dyppel Weber, Katja, (2016), “Study on structures of aggressive tax planning and indicators”, European Commission, Working Paper N. 61 – 2015. As a response to the increasing sophistication of tax planners in identifying and exploiting the legal arbitrage opportunities and the boundaries of acceptable tax planning, policymakers across OECD, G20 and EU countries have taken steps to ensure that taxation duly takes place where economic value is generated and where the economic …Read More
Roubini, Nouriel, (2016), “Unconventional Monetary Policy On Stilts”, Social Europe, 5 April With most advanced economies experiencing anemic recoveries from the 2008 financial crisis, their central banks have been forced to move from conventional monetary policy – reducing policy rates via open-market purchases of short-term government bonds – to a range of unconventional policies. Although the zero nominal bound on interest rates – previously only a theoretical possibility – had been …Read More
