New England is at the leading edge of an energy transition in which natural gas is playing an increasingly important role in the US electricity generation mix. In recent years, the region's wholesale natural gas and electricity markets have experienced severe, simultaneous price spikes. While...

Recent studies investigate policies motivating consumers to make an active choice as a way to protect unsophisticated consumers. We analyse the optimal timing of such choice-enhancing policies when a firm can strategically react to them. In our model, a firm provides an automatic enrollment or...

The COVID-19 pandemic could result in large government interventions in the banking industry. To shed light on the possible consequences on market power, we rely on the experience of the global financial crisis and exploit granular data on government interventions in more than 800 banks across...

In the European Union, energy markets are increasingly being liberalized. A case in point is the European natural gas industry. The general expectation is that more competition will lead to lower prices and higher volumes, and hence higher welfare. This paper indicates that this might not happen...

We reassess the driving forces behind the recent decline of corporate tax rates in Europe. Using data for up to 32 countries from 1983 to 2006, we analyze the role of economic and financial openness as well as tax competition while allowing for dynamic adjustment to shocks and period-specific as...

This paper develops a model of tax competition with three countries, which initially form a union where countries refrain from using different tax rates in different sectors of the economy. We study the impact of one country leaving the union. We show that the introduction of discriminatory...

This paper revisits the effects of corruption on the state's capacity to raise revenue, building on the existing empirical literature using new and more disaggregated data. We use a comprehensive dataset for 147 countries spanning 1995-2014, compiled by the IMF. It finds that-consistent with the...

Did austerity cause Brexit? This paper shows that the rise of popular support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), as the single most important correlate of the subsequent Leave vote in the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum, along with broader measures of political dissatisfaction, are...

We study the sustainability of pension systems using a life-cycle model with distortionary taxation that sets an upper limit to the real value of tax revenues. This limit implies an endogenous threshold dependency ratio, i.e. a point in the cross-section distribution of the population beyond...

Using a panel of 97 mostly developing and transitional countries for the period 1990-2011, this paper explores fiscal implications of membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Employing robust difference-in-difference specifications as well as semi-parametric methods, we find that...