This study contests the emerging consensus that the educational realignment in voting behavior is centered on non-economic policies. Leveraging comprehensive post-election surveys and party manifesto data, I examine voter responses to previously underexplored dimensions of economic policy - most...

According to current macroeconomic models, there is a need to maintain a natural rate of unemployment to contain inflation. Put simply, unemployment is considered an (inevitable) cost of price stability. Even some Post Keynesian economists believe the so-called balance-of-payments (BOP)...

We document a Kuznets curve for construction productivity in 20th-century America. Homes built per construction worker remained stagnant between 1900 and 1940, boomed after World War II, and then plummeted after 1970. The productivity boom from 1940 to 1970 shows that nothing makes technological...

Russia's war of aggression, which has brought wide destruction and loss to Ukraine, has also transformed the Russian economy in significant ways. The Russian government's role in the economy has grown, with an ever-increasing amount of economic resources allocated to the war effort. The...

This study investigates the socioeconomic determinants of household expenditure on sports bicycles in Spain, providing novel insights into the affordability and equity dimensions of sustainable mobility policies. Whilst cycling promotion has emerged as a central pillar of urban and environmental...

This policy note explores key issues in the Danube Region, focusing on labour market dynamics, including the development of digital skills, foreign direct investment (FDI) with a particular emphasis on FDI in the IT sector, and the robotisation and automation of the region's industries. Covering...

Disparities across social identity groups (such as race, caste, and ethnicity) are a global phenomenon, where significant differences in wealth and other socioeconomic outcomes are observed. Although the contexts and historical roots of these differences vary by country, there are common...

The U.S. is currently the country with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths. By the second week of October 2021, over 700,000 people in the U.S. had died after contracting the virus. When estimating the cost and benefit of a COVID-19 prevention measure, the value of a statistical life (VSL) has...

This study examines the influence of fiscal councils on public opinion regarding fiscal issues. Using a survey-framing experiment on a representative sample of 900 inhabitants of the Czech Republic, the study evaluates how the framing of a message regarding the negative effects of rising...

We construct an Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index for Malta based on the methodology of Baker, Bloom and Davis (2015) using articles published between 2004 and 2022 from four Maltese news portals. The index spikes during general elections and other significant local or international...

In this paper we show that both climate models and economic models studying the effects of climate change are characterized by high uncertainty. Hence, far reaching policy implications such as the net zero goal lack a definite scientific foundation. Neverthelss, it cannot be excluded that the...

Economists have played a powerful role in shaping modern Australia. Drawing on my experience as an academic economist and an economic policymaker, I outline ten principles to guide economists seeking to maximise their impact. These are to (1) Focus on wellbeing, not just dollars; (2) Think...

This paper empirically investigates what drives the growth of private businesses in Timor-Leste and the policy actions needed to facilitate growth amid global uncertainty, especially for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). It uses the linear probability model (LPM) to identify...

Inwieweit lassen sich die wachsenden Zustimmungswerte für populistische Parteien durch ökonomische Ursachen erklären? Wichtige Faktoren sind die wahrgenommene Ungleichheit und empfundene Abstiegsängste. Die allgemeine und individuelle wirtschaftliche Lage werden subjektiv oft als schlechter...

Thailand’s economy showed signs of mild improvement in November supported by stronger exports and retail trade. Government stimulus measures, including the co-payment scheme and travel incentives, helped lift activity in hotels and restaurants, though overall household consumption remained...

Economic growth decelerated to 1.5 percent in the first half of 2025, driven by contraction in the hydrocarbon sector and marked slowdown in non-hydrocarbon sector output. Hydrocarbon sector output fell 3.2 percent (you) as daily crude oil production declined 3.1 percent (yoyo) while natural gas...

Lebanon’s economy recorded positive growth in 2025, marking a modest step toward a potential path for long-term recovery. The improvement reflects a rebound in tourism, alongside early signs of macroeconomic stabilization and some base-effect-driven gains following years of deep contraction....

This Country Program Evaluation examines the World Bank Group’s support to Jamaica from FY2014 to FY2025 across successive strategies and an interim period without a formal framework. The evaluation seeks to identify lessons to inform future Bank Group engagement in support of Jamaica’s...

This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) assesses the performance of the World Bank Group’s (WBG) assistance to the Republic of Kosovo from fiscal years (FY) 2012 to 2025, seeking to identify lessons to inform future WBG engagements in Kosovo, including the next CPF, which is expected in FY27....

It is well established that the U.S. prewar output was more volatile and less shock persistent than the postwar output. This is often attributed to the data interpolation employed to construct the prewar series. Our analytical results, however, indicate that commonly used linear interpolation...

The economic tradition of ordoliberalism, understood as the theoretical and policy ideas of the Freiburg School, emerged in 1930s and 1940s Germany. In the years thereafter, it was quickly superseded by Keynesianism and other theories imported from the English-speaking world. The crisis in...