We develop an endogenous growth model to quantify how permanent structural policy changes that enhance the fiscal policy mix, markets' functioning, and public institutions' quality affect long-term growth and welfare. The reforms include increased public investment, reduced market power through...

Previous research on optimal R&D subsidies has focussed on the long run. This paper characterizes the optimal time path of R&D subsidization in a semi-endogenous growth model, by exploiting a recently developed numerical method. Starting from the steady state under current R&D subsidization in...

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...

A lack of platform-level competition among digital marketplaces can result in socially inefficient platform design and meaningful welfare losses, even independent of actively anticompetitive behavior. To illustrate the first-order effects platform design can have on competitive outcomes, I...

Evaluating the desirability of a reform typically involves weighing the gains of the winners against the losses of the losers using welfare weights. Welfare weights measure the value that citizens assigns to a $1 gain in consumption to individuals. They can capture various normative ideals like...

This paper provides new evidence on the sustainability of public finances in German states (Laender) by exploiting a newly compiled database covering the years 1950 - 2011. Unlike previous studies on Germany, we analyze fiscal sustainability by applying "gsecond generation" panel cointegration...

In this paper we analyze the sustainability of public finances in the states (Laender) of the Federal Republic of Germany using an unprecedentedly comprehensive fiscal dataset for the time period from 1950 to 2011 for West German Laender and 1991 to 2011 for East German Laender, respectively. In...

In this paper, we extend Henning Bohn's (2008) fiscal sustainability test by allowing for slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence (CD). In particular, our econometric approach is the first that allows fiscal reaction functions (FRF) to capture unobserved heterogeneous effects from...

This paper applies the Phillips and Sul (2007) method to test for convergence in stock returns to an extensive dataset including monthly stock price indices for five EU countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK) as well as the US over the period 1973-2008. We carry out the...

How should we construct incidence indexes for children and parents in the case of public subsidies for home-care of the elderly? What is the nature of a fiscal incidence index on a budgetary basis versus a theoretically more satisfactory index that is welfare-based? Can we find budgetary based...