In this paper, we analyze whether the complexity of tax bills affects financial markets. Based on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level of the 32 tax bills identified by Romer and Romer (2010) in the period 1962–2003, we assess the relationship between tax bills' complexity and financial markets...

A frequently employed argument against imposing international sanctions is that rival superpowers are likely to bust sanctions to simultaneously shield the target, harm the sender, and make a profit. We evaluate the legitimacy of this concern by studying the effect of US sanctions on trade flows...

Recursively identified vector autoregressive (VAR) models often lead to a counterintuitive response of prices (and output) shortly after a monetary policy shock. To overcome this problem, we propose to estimate the VAR parameters under the restriction that economic theory is not violated, while...

We propose a novel dynamic mixture vector autoregressive (VAR) model in which time-varying mixture weights are driven by the predictive likelihood score. Intuitively, the state weight of the k-th component VAR model in the subsequent period is increased if the current observation is more likely...

We evaluate Germany's temporary value-added tax (VAT) rate reduction as a tool to stimulate consumer spending during the Covid-19 pandemic using a comparative case study approach. We construct a credible counterfactual for Germany in a two-step procedure. First, we carry out a careful...

In this first empirical analysis of how sanctions affect international migration, we apply two estimation strategies, a panel difference-in-differences model and an event study approach. Our dataset covers 79,791 dyad-year observations, reflecting migration flows from 157 origin countries to 32...

We examine the asymmetric impact of shocks to macroeconomic expectations and their underlying dispersion on equity risk premia across different market regimes. First, we rely on a two-state logit mixture vector autoregressive model and use Consensus Economics survey data on GDP growth,...

This paper retraces how financial stability considerations interacted with U.S. monetary policy before and during the Great Recession. Using text-mining techniques, we construct indicators for financial stability sentiment expressed during testimonies of four Federal Reserve Chairs at...

We empirically analyze the effect of UN and US economic sanctions on life expectancy and its gender gap in target countries. Our sample covers 98 less developed and newly industrialized countries over the period 1977–2012. We employ a matching approach to account for the endogeneity of...

We estimate a logit mixture vector autoregressive model describing monetary policy transmission in the euro area over the period 2003Q1–2019Q4 with a special emphasis on credit conditions. With the help of this model, monetary policy transmission can be described as mixture of two states...