This paper evaluates the Stability and Growth Pact. After briefly examining the rules in place and the experience so far, the Pact is analysed from a political economy perspective, focusing on the choice of hard versus soft law and drawing inferences from characteristics of successful fiscal...

This dissertation is a collection of four articles focused on the seeking of rents, which are rewards and prizes not earned or not consistent with competitive market returns. Each article explores a different aspect of the topic, focusing on the consequences, determinants or measurement of...

Central banks are increasingly reaching out to the general public to motivate and explain their monetary policy actions. One major aim of this outreach is to guide inflation expectations; another is to ensure accountability and create trust. This article surveys a rapidly-growing literature on...

Using two large-scale surveys among households, we examine the drivers of trust in banks, insurance companies, BigTechs, and other people in the United States and the Netherlands, and analyse whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected public trust. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic...

We examine the empirical determinants of China's outward direct investment (ODI) in Africa using an officially approved ODI dataset and a relatively new OECD-IMF format ODI dataset. China's ODI is found responding to the canonical economic determinants that include the market seeking motive, the...

There exist many indicators for corporatism. Using a latent variables approach, we extract common aspects in 29 corporatism indicators which have been suggested in the literature and find two factors that can be identified as the degree of coordination between employers and trade unions, and the...