I evaluate the link between automation and the rise in top income concentration when inequality matters for macro. The novel mechanism is that automation redistributes income towards high-wealth households who save more, which lowers the interest rate and incites firms to automate more. To...

I show that in linear rational expectation models, the effect of a monetary tightening can be simulated using contemporaneous and anticipated monetary policy shocks that replicate the forward curves observed during the period of interest, normalized with the forward curve observed in the quarter...

Past research shows that firms with constrained access to debt are more likely to withdraw from exporting. We argue that a firm's debt maturity structure (i.e., the short-term/long-term debt mix) also matters because short-term debt entails liquidity risk and long-term debt entails higher costs....

Policies supporting small businesses are popular among policymakers but often criticised by economists for their potential to distort the economy. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of a unique policy that subsidises the first employee. Empirically, we find that the policy led to a...

We extend the reference DSGE model used for policy analysis at the NBB with a financial sector, by incorporating multi-period fixed-rate corporate and mortgage loans, an imperfect pass-through from policy rates to the deposit rate, and bank capital re-quirements. Adding multi-period fixed-rate...

Drawing on two data sources from across Europe, we show that both bequest motives of parents and children's gender composition shape unequal divisions of bequests. First, the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe reveals that observed bequests are divided unequally when children...

In the absence of a wealth register, Belgian wealth inequality needs to be estimated. Here I apply the mortality multiplier approach to Belgian inheritance tax tabulations and administrative microdata, collectively covering 1935 to 2022. Belgian wealth inequality has strongly declined during the...

Using a representative sample of firms in Belgian manufacturing over 2001Q1-2017Q4, we study the effects of their international sourcing activities and domestic wages on their domestic output prices, as well as the effects of international sourcing on (relative) domestic wages. Controlling for...

When taxes do not sufficiently adjust to government debt levels, the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level predicts that other variables, such as inflation and output gap, must adjust to ensure the solvency of public finances. We study the role of optimal debt maturity portfolios in this context,...

The ECB concluded its strategy review in 2021 with a plan to include owner-occupied housing (OOH) costs in its inflation measure in the future. This paper uses the Bundesbank's online household panel to study how household expectations would react to this change. We conducted a survey experiment...