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...

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...

A windfall of natural resource revenue (or foreign aid) faces government with choices of how to manage public debt, investment, and the distribution of funds for consumption, particularly if the windfall is both anticipated and temporary. We show that the permanent income hypothesis prescription...

We estimate fiscal reaction functions for non-hydrocarbon tax and public spending shares of national income and for debt management strategies adopted by Norway and compare these with rules that would prevail under the permanent income hypothesis and bird-in-hand rule. We conclude that the...

This paper examines the distributional implications of inflation on top income shares in 12 advanced economies using data over the period 1920-2016. We use Local Projections to analyze how top income shares respond to an inflation shock, and panel regressions in which all variables are defined...

This paper examines the impact of labour market and product market reforms on income inequality for 25 OECD countries, using the local projections approach and updates of the reform indicators put together by Duval et al. (2018) until 2020. Our results suggest that both types of (endogenized)...

We use real-time annual data on the fiscal balance, government current spending, current revenues and net capital outlays as published at a half yearly frequency in the OECD Economic Outlook for 25 OECD countries. For each fiscal year t we have a number of forecasts, a first release, and...

Cross-country regressions suggest that urbanization and FDI are important drivers of growth. However, it is not clear that primacy eventually hurts growth performance. Since it is tough to interpret cross-country growth regressions, we provide detailed evidence on the determinants of outward FDI...

Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System diverging current account positions in Europe have prevailed. While the Southern and Western European countries have tended to run current account deficits, the current accounts of the Central and Northern European countries, in particular Germany,...

Using the measures proposed by Mink et al. (2012), we reexamine the coherence of business cycles in the euro area using a long sample period. We also analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business cycle coherence and examine whether our measures for business cycle coherence indicate a...