The paper takes stock of the debate on the positive link between output volatility and the size of government-which reflects automatic stabilizers. After a survey of the literature, we show that the contribution of automatic stabilizers to output stability may have disappeared since the 1990s....

An influential strand of recent research has claimed that large governments in European countries explain their weaker long-term economic performance compared to the U.S. On the other hand, despite these alleged costs, large governments have been popular with electorates. This paper seeks to...

The paper takes stock of the debate on the positive link between output volatility and the size of government-which reflects automatic stabilizers. After a survey of the literature, we show that the contribution of automatic stabilizers to output stability may have disappeared since the 1990s....

The total fertility rate-the average number of births per woman-in Europe is already at 1.46, which is significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1, where fertility compensates for mortality and thereby the population replaces itself from one generation to the next. Falling fertility rates...

We explore the relationship of recessions and tourism cycles on the economic performance of tourism-dependent Small Developing States (SDS). Using local projections regressions, we examine how these cycles affect potential output growth and its drivers-investment and employment-and estimate the...

Focusing on a cross-border perspective, this paper identifies four key binding constraints that hinder firms' ability to innovate and scale up within the EU single market-fragmented regulations, inefficient financial intermediation, limited labor mobility, and fragmented energy market. To...

We examine growth strategies for the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) focusing on the role of tourism and diversification. First, we quantify the contribution of tourism to growth using panel regressions and we compute how much additional tourism would be needed for PICs to sustain comparators'...

During a major crisis, the transitional dynamics of conditional convergence are unlikely to apply. In this paper, we introduce a Markov chain approach which integrates the study of crises and convergence. We allow upwards and downwards mobility to change when a country enters a crisis regime. We...

This paper looks at the empirical record whether big infrastructure and public capital drives have succeeded in accelerating economic growth in low-income countries. It looks at big long-lasting drives in public capital spending, as these were arguably clear and exogenous policy decisions. On...