This paper examines the impact of labour and product market reforms on economic growth in 25 OECD countries between 1985 and 2013, and tests whether this impact is conditioned by the fiscal policy stance, i.e. whether there are fiscal expansions or adjustments. Our local projection results...

We examine how fiscal rules influence economic growth. The results show that constitutional fiscal rules promoted growth from the Industrial Revolution until World War II (1789-1950) and also increased modern economic growth (1985-2015). To address selection on unobservables, we conduct a...

This paper surveys political-economic research on the variety of instruments that governments use to conduct international trade policy. It presents key insights on the relationships between instruments such as tariffs, quotas, voluntary export restraints, and other nontariff barriers, as well...

Use of temporary trade barriers has proliferated across countries, industries, and even policy instruments. This paper constructs a panel of bilateral, product-level United States steel imports that are matched to a unique data set on trade policy exclusions that are associated with the 2002...

This paper estimates the impact of aggregate fluctuations on the time-varying trade policies of thirteen major emerging economies over 1989-2010; by 2010, these WTO member countries collectively accounted for 21 percent of world merchandise imports and 22 percent of world GDP. The paper examines...

During the last decades, the United States has applied increasingly high trade protection against China. We combine detailed information on US antidumping (AD) duties — the most widely used trade barrier — with US input-output data to study the effects of trade protection along supply...

This paper examines whether there is a political budget cycle (PBC) in countries in the euro area. Using a multivariate model for the period 1999-2004 and various election indicators we find strong evidence that the Stability and Growth Pact has not restricted fiscal policy makers in the euro...