This paper discusses structure, impact, costs, and efficiency of renewable energy supply in the eight largest advanced economies (the G-7 plus Spain), with focus on Germany. Renewables production costs are compared to benefits, defined as reductions in net carbon emissions; technological...

This paper fills a gap in the macroeconomic literature on renewable sources of energy. It offers a definition of green investment and analyzes the trends and determinants of this investment over the last decade for 35 advanced and emerging countries. We use a new multi-country historical dataset...

This paper presents an overview of recent U.S. fiscal developments and discusses possible implications of the sharp turn around in the government’s fiscal position. Against this back ground, it also reviews key policy challenges that will need to be addressed to cope with the mounting...

This Selected Issues paper discusses the economics of energy price reform in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Economic policies in Iran have traditionally relied on the abundant availability of energy at a low price to finance the country’s economic development. Low domestic energy prices...

This paper quantifies the magnitude and nature of migration flows from the Caribbean and estimates their costs and benefits. The Caribbean countries have lost 10-40 percent of their labor force due to emigration to OECD member countries. The migration rates are particularly striking for the...

The paper provides a selective survey of methods and findings concerning the impact of tax and welfare policies on employment, unemployment, and economic growth in OECD countries. The paper examines a number of facets of tax and welfare policy and concludes that cross-country macroeconomic...

We read search theory's unemployment equilibrium condition as an Iso-Unemployment Curve(IUC).The IUC is the locus of job destruction rates and expected unemployment durations rendering the same unemployment level. A country's position along the curve reveals its preferences over the...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between labor market flexibility and unemployment outcomes. Using a panel of 97 countries from 1985 to 2008, the results of the paper suggest that improvements in labor market flexibility have a statistically and significant negative impact on...

In many countries the decentralization of spending responsibilities has outpaced the decentralization of revenue powers. Sub-national governments have then to rely on transfers from the center and borrowing to finance their spending. When this occurs, we find that the overall fiscal deficit...

This paper analyzes the duration of house price upturns and downturns in the last 40 years for 19 OECD countries. I provide two sets of results, one pertaining to the average length and the other to the length distribution. On average, upturns are longer than downturns, but the difference...