We study the effects on financial markets and real economic activity of changes in risk related to political events and policy announcements in Italy during the 2013-2019 period that saw the rise to power of populist parties. We focus on events that have implications for budgetary policy, debt...

This research note discusses the Euro crisis in Greece in light of the referendum of July the 5th. It lays out the social and political costs of a GREXIT, but also of a continuing austerity policy. It proposes a reform policy fostering growth in Greece and discusses the role of conditionality....

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 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...

As more and more Venezuelans leave their country, fleeing the economic and social crisis, the number of Venezuelans in Brazil has risen steadily since 2016, constituting about 18.6 percent of Brazil's 1.4 million refugee and migrant population as of October 2020. Past research finds that the...

We study the labor demand effect of immigration on local labor markets by exploiting the fact that refugees in Germany are banned from working in the first few months after arrival. This natural experiment allows isolating a pure immigration-induced labor demand effect. For empirical...

Mission-oriented innovation policies are becoming increasingly popular among policymakers and scholars. We maintain that these policies are based on an overly mechanistic view of innovation and economic growth, suggesting that a more bottom-up approach is called for. By invoking an...

We decompose the redistributive effect of direct taxes into vertical, horizontal, and reranking components applying the methods of Urban and Lambert (Public Finance Review, 2008). In the first such application to the UK, and using yearly data covering 1977–2020, we find that redistributive...

This paper develops a model in which the interaction of entrepreneurial investments and power of the owners of land or other natural resources determines structural change and economic development. A more equal distribution of natural resources promotes structural change and growth through two...

This brief paper draws attention to molecular genetic research which may provide a new dimension to our understanding of how socioeconomic outcomes are generated. In particular, we provide an overview of the recently emerging evidence of gene-environment interaction effects. This literature...