This paper estimates the causal effect of financial constraints on the short-term performance of Finnish SMEs using survey data from 2016-2024 and propensity score matching (PSM). We examine six outcomes: turnover, employment, investment, profitability, solvency, and innovation, and report...

Many instrumental variables applications specify a single Bernoulli treatment. But instruments may change outcomes through multiple pathways or by varying treatment intensity. Lottery instruments that boost charter school enrollment, for instance, may affect outcomes by lengthening time enrolled...

This study evaluates the costs and benefits of alternative COVID-19 strategies for Norway, drawing on ex-post evidence from countries that pursued markedly different approaches. We argue that an elimination strategy-combining strict infection control with stringent border measures until a...

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of global copper supply shocks. We identify exogenous disruptions to copper supply using a Bayesian structural VAR of the world copper market that combines sign and narrative restrictions. We then trace the international transmission of the identified...

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) provide a transparent framework for encoding causal structures and identifying causal effects. This paper demonstrates how DAGs help specify local projections (LPs) for estimating causal impulse responses. Examples illustrate how graphical rules can be used to...

Die vorliegende Studie geht der Frage nach, inwieweit an angelsächsischen Vorbildern orientierte Organizing-Konzepte, die seit Mitte der 2000er Jahre zunehmend Eingang in die gewerkschaftliche Praxis gefunden haben, zu einer Stabilisierung des Tarifsystems beitragen können. Die Erwartung dabei...

This study evaluates the impact of Malta's 2014 childcare reform, a universal Free Childcare Scheme for children aged 3 months to 3 years, on female employment. Using a difference-in-differences (DD) framework and matched DD models, I find that the reform may have increased the probability of...

Numerous empirical studies indicate that social media use is correlated with, and sometimes might be causing, mental harms like addiction, anxiety and depression, or lowering of cognitive abilities. In 2023, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to introduce new rules to...

I develop and estimate a life-cycle discrete-choice model of fertility and female labor supply to study the optimal design of a range of child-related policies. First, I examine two German reforms that introduced wage-contingent parental leave payments and expanded access to low-cost public...

Though social protection in sub-Saharan Africa is intensive to alleviate food insecurity of the vulnerable group such as women, its impact on the food security status of female-headed rural households has not been well documented. Accordingly, the present study aims to evaluate the effect of the...

We estimate the community-level impact of foreign aid projects on women's empowerment in the country with the most complete recent record of geo-coded aid project placement, Malawi. Our estimates can thus be interpreted as the average impact of aid from many different donors and diverse...

Gegenstand der vorliegenden Analyse ist die Frage, wie Lohn-Preis-Spiralen die makroökonomische Stabilität und Inflationsentwicklung in Deutschland beeinflussen und in welcher Form sie auftreten können. Im Jahr 2023 wird die Inflation von binnenwirtschaftlichen Preistreibern verursacht....

Policies aimed at supporting economically lagging regions have changed considerably in the past decades. This includes an increased link between innovation and regional policy, as well as more recently transformative policy. The WIR! Programme, funded by the Ministry of Research and Education in...

The paper examines the effect of macroeconomic imbalances on bank lending with emphasis on the exchange rate movement, inflation differential and fiscal deficit. In the study, bank lending is modelled by gross loans and advances, assets quality and risk appetite. The panel GMM model results show...

This short factual overview paper describes the complexity created by the tariffs imposed by the US, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Policy Brief concludes by highlighting the importance of the EU "Access2Market" tool in addressing these new complexities, helping EU...