This paper looks at how individual preferences for the allocation of government spending change along the life cycle. Using the Life in Transition Survey II for 34 countries in Europe and Central Asia, the study finds that older individuals are less likely to support a rise in government outlays...

Using household surveys for 24 countries over a 10-year period, this paper investigates why the elderly are more averse to open immigration policies than their younger peers. The analysis finds that the negative correlation between age and pro-immigration attitudes is mostly explained by a...

This paper examines how the 2008-09 financial crisis affected labor markets in Central and Western Europe, and how this impact depended on employment protections laws. Using a differences-in-differences approach that compares industries with varying degrees of inherent dependence on external...

This paper exploits variations in the timing of telecommunications reforms across Europe to analyze the relationship between the rise of alternative work arrangements and the emergence of the Internet. The paper evaluates whether sectors that are technologically more dependent on information and...

This paper quantifies the contributions of different factors to poverty reduction observed in Bangladesh, Peru and Thailand over the last decade. In contrast to methods that focus on aggregate summary statistics, the method adopted here generates entire counterfactual distributions to account...

Demographics, labor income, public transfers, or remittances: Which factor contributes the most to observed reductions in poverty? Using counterfactual simulations, this paper accounts for the contribution labor income has made to the observed changes in poverty over the past decade for a set of...

The relationship between income inequality and crime has attracted the interest of many researchers, but little convincing evidence exists on the causal effect of inequality on crime in developing countries. This paper estimates this effect in a unique context: Mexico's Drug War. The analysis...

Empirical evidence on the potential impacts of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is mostly focused on high-income countries. In contrast, little is known about the role of this technology on the future economic pathways of developing economies. This paper contributes to fill this gap by...

Household credit, especially for mortgages, has doubled over the past years in the new European Union member countries, raising concerns about the economic and social consequences of household indebtedness in the event of a macroeconomic crisis. Using household survey data for 2005, 2006, and...

In January 2006 the price of natural gas supplied to Moldova increased from $80 to $110 per thousand cubic meters (mcm). Prices may increase further in the near future, putting additional pressure on the economy and leading to adverse effects on the poorest households. This study examines the...