Fertility has long been declining in industrialised countries and the existence of public pension systems is considered as one of the causes. This paper provides detailed evidence based on historical data on the mechanism by which a public pension system depresses fertility. Our theoretical...

We address the question of whether the heterogeneity in savings is partly due to differences in pension wealth across individuals and across countries, using a European harmonised wealth survey (HFCS) combined with estimates of pension wealth (OECD). First, we find significant displacement...

This paper aims to address the issue of public pension reforms under demographic ageing that is likely to occur in Europe over the next 50 years. Three possible scenarios are analysed in a Blanchard OLG framework. These include: i) a decrease both in public pensions and the lump sum labour...

Does leverage drive investor flows in bond mutual funds? Leverage can increase fund returns in good times, but it can also magnify investors' losses and their response to bad performance. We study bond fund flows to provide new evidence for the link between mutual fund leverage and financial...

This paper studies how the Covid-19 pandemic and the extensive job retention support that accompanied it affected productivity in Europe. The focus is on the reallocation channel and productivity-enhancing reallocation of jobs, following Foster et al., 2016. An extensive micro-distributed...

The paper evaluates the impact of the Chinese minimum wage policy on consumption of low-wage households for the period 2002-2009. Using a representative household panel, we find that the consumption response to minimum wage income shock is increasing in the minimum wage share of household income...

In this paper we estimate the degree of real wage flexibility in 19 EU countries in a wage Phillips curve panel framework. We find evidence for a reaction of wage growth to unemployment and productivity growth. However, due to unemployment persistence, over time the real wage response weakens...

This paper presents information on wage bargaining institutions, collected using a standardised questionnaire. Our data provide information from 1995 and 2006, for four sectors of activity and the aggregate economy, considering 23 European countries, plus the US and Japan. Main findings include...

This paper analyses information from survey data collected in the framework of the Eurosystem’s Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) on patterns of firm-level adjustment to shocks. We document that the relative intensity and the character of price vs. cost and wage vs. employment adjustments in...

This paper analyses information from survey data collected in the framework of the Eurosystem's Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) on patterns of firm-level adjustment to shocks. We document that the relative intensity and the character of price vs. cost and wage vs. employment adjustments in response...