At the beginning of June 2020, the German government launched a comprehensive economic stimulus package to promote economic recovery. With a volume of EUR 130 billion, this program far outstrips programs launched in the wake of the financial and economic crisis of 2008/09. We present the fiscal...

We try to explain why Italy's labor productivity stopped growing in the mid-1990s. We find no evidence that this slowdown is due to trade dynamics, Italy's inefficient governmental apparatus, or excessively protective labor regulations. By contrast, the data suggest that Italy's slowdown was...