Japan’s gross government debt of 226% of GDP in 2018 is the highest ever recorded in the OECD area, and places the economy at risk. The government now aims to achieve a primary surplus by FY 2025. Additional fiscal consolidation, based on a detailed plan covering specific spending cuts and tax...

The paper studies the impact of tax-benefit policies on the distribution of household incomes and work incentives in Estonia. It makes use of microsimulation modelling approach and applies the EU tax-benefit model EUROMOD to quantify the first-order effects of policy changes in 2016-2018 and of...

Latvia’s productivity growth is held back by weak innovation and inefficient resource allocation. The shortage of skilled workers which constrains innovation and the adoption of digital technologies must be addressed through further alignment of vocational and tertiary education with labour...

Ever since the early 20th century, Argentina has failed to fully reap the benefits that integrating into the world economy can offer. With exports and imports only accounting for less than 30% of GDP, Argentina is significantly less integrated into the world economy than other emerging market...

This paper investigates the causal effect of public administration efficiency on firm-level productivity. To this purpose, we combine newly available data from Italy on public administration efficiency of subnational governments with geo-localised firm-level data for the years 2004-2014. Italy...

The negative interest rate policy (NIRP) has been in place in the euro area since June 2014. While the NIRP can provide additional monetary accommodation in the situation where the neutral rate of interest is most likely negative, there are also unintended consequences for banks’ profitability...

L’investissement public a le potentiel de stimuler la demande à court terme, et des infrastructures appropriées peuvent aussi entraîner des gains de productivité et contribuer à rendre la croissance économique plus inclusive en garantissant une égalité d’accès au marché du travail,...

Intorno alla meta degli anni novanta alcuni cambiamenti che si stavano sviluppando da tempo nell’industria manifatturiera secondo dinamiche autonome e percorsi distinti, improvvisamente subiscono una accelerazione e tendono a convergere verso un nuovo modello di produzione. Le caratteristiche...

This paper presents the results of an analysis on Life Lacket (LJ) effectiveness in U.S. recreational boating between 2008 and 2011. We use the US Coast Guard's Boating Accident Report Database (BARD) to fit a Poisson regression of number of fatalities on many different factors interacting at...

The Deepwater Horizon well blow-out in 2010 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico is a recent example of a major news and environmental event while the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 is more distant with some similar characteristics. Previous work by the authors estimated the welfare loss from “passive use...