We explore the role of business services in knowledge accumulation and growth and the determinants of knowledge diffusion including the role of distance. A continuous-time model is estimated on several European countries, Japan, and the United States. Policy simulations illustrate the benefits...

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic and financial sector policy announcements in the United States, the United Kingdom, the euro area, and Japan during the recent crisis on interbank credit and liquidity risk premia. Announcements of interest rate cuts, liquidity support, liability...

This paper addresses three questions about unconventional monetary policies. First, what policies were tried, and with what objectives? Second, were policies effective? And third, what role might these policies continue to play in the future?

This paper provides background information to the main Board paper, 'The Role and Limits of Unconventional Monetary Policy.' This paper is divided in five distinct sections, each focused on a different topic covered in the main paper, though most relate to bond purchase programs. As a result,...

This paper develops and calibrates a simple general equilibrium model with two types of labor and capital for the French economy. The simulation results indicate that targeted reductions in employer social security taxes have six times as large an effect on employment as untargeted reductions...

The paper examines labor market developments in the four hard-peg European Union (EU) accession candidates during transition, with a view toward understanding the persistent high unemployment experienced in each country. Despite the significant levels of unemployment in all four countries, labor...

The growth rate of real hourly wages in France has fallen below the trend growth rate of total factor productivity. The distribution of wage and earnings growth has not been uniform across deciles. A breakdown in employment growth by wage deciles also suggests important composition changes. The...

The GCC growth model has delivered substantial improvements in living standards over several decades. Access to foreign labor has supported rapid growth in the non-oil sector and price stability in the region. It has also resulted in positive spillovers to the migrant-sending countries through...

In designing policy measures, including possible social safety nets, targeted to the poor, it is important to fully understand the efficiency implications of these measures. There is abundant macroeconomic literature on their negative effects on the poor’s work effort. The literature, however,...