We estimate the employment effects of a large program of public investment subsidies that ranked applications on a score reflecting both objective criteria and local politicians' preferences. Leveraging the rationing of funds as an ideal RDD, we characterize the heterogeneity of treatment...

We study the design of optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with labor turnover costs in which wages are set according to a right to manage bargaining where the firms' counterpart is given by currently employed workers. Our model captures well the salient features of European labor...

We show that taxation of rents may yield an intergenerational Pareto-improvement in a small open economy provided tax revenues are earmarked to reduce wage taxes. Previous literature has shown that rent taxation benefits current young and future generations, while we show that it also benefits...

We evaluate the effect of relaxing fiscal rules on policy outcomes applying a quasi-experimental research design. In 1999, the Italian central government introduced fiscal rules aimed at imposing fiscal discipline on municipal governments, and in 2001 the rules were relaxed for municipalities...

We build an equilibrium model of a small open economy with labor market frictions and imperfectly enforced regulations. Heterogeneous firms sort into the formal or informal sector. We estimate the model using data from Brazil, and use counterfactual simulations to understand how trade affects...

The fear of massive job losses has prompted a fast-growing literature on offshoring and its impact on employment in advanced economies. This paper examines the situation for Belgium. It improves the offshoring intensity measure by computing a volume measure of the share of imported intermediates...

In the last decades, international trade has increased between industrialised countries and between high- and low-wage countries. This important change has raised questions on how international trade affects the labour market. In this spirit, this paper aims to investigate the impact of...

This paper begins the synthesis of two currently unrelated literatures: the human capital approach to health economics and the economics of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. A lifecycle investment framework is the foundation for understanding the origins of human inequality and for...

We construct a model of offshoring with externalities and firm heterogeneity. Due to the presence of externalities, temporary shocks like the Y2K problem can have permanent effects, i.e., they can permanently raise the extent of offshoring in an industry. Also, the initial advantage of a country...