The premise of this article is that an understanding of psychology and other social science disciplines can inform the effectiveness of the economic tools traditionally deployed in carrying out the functions of government, which include remedying market failures, redistributing income, and...

We develop a model of the private provision of public goods in a world where agents face convex costs of provision. Consonant with prior empirical evidence, we introduce preference heterogeneity by allowing a subset of agents to exhibit pro-social behavior that reflects "green" preferences. We...

We show that policy uncertainty about how the rising public debt will be stabilized accounts for the lack of deflation in the US economy at the zero lower bound. We first estimate a Markov-switching VAR to highlight that a zero-lower-bound regime captures most of the comovements during the Great...

We reinterpret post World War II US economic history using an estimated microfounded model that allows for changes in the monetary/fiscal policy mix. We find that the fiscal authority was the leading authority in the ‘60s and the ‘70s. The appointment of Volcker marked a change in the...

We analyze behavioral additionality effects related to wage-based R&D tax credits and their dependence on the joint use of R&D subsidies. Using a matching approach combined with multivariate probit analyses on survey data of Belgian firms in 2006-2010, we find that tax credits cause firms not to...

This paper analyzes a set of new scenarios for energy markets in Europe to evaluate the consistency of economic incentives and climate objectives. It focuses in particular on the role of natural gas across a range of climate policy scenarios (including the Copenhagen Pledges and the EU Roadmap)...

For some time now, the Bank of Canada has adopted inflation targeting to operationalize its general policy of maintaining price stability in Canada. Inflation targeting has a number of important benefits: it anchors private sector inflation expectations, provides a clear and transparent way to...

Transforming the energy system to one with a greater importance of renewable power generation technologies requires redirecting and accelerating technological change. In this transition, so-called policy mixes play a crucial role. Yet precisely how policy mixes affect technological innovation...

Currently, China's expansionary fiscal policy and tight monetary policy have formed an opposing policy mix. This is due to the imbalanced macro-economy, which suffers from the pressures of inflation and slow growth. In response to economic changes, China adjusted its monetary policy as the real...