Within the economic profession, it is a widely held view that the fiscal criteria of the Maastricht treaty are arbitrary numbers without economic foundation. Much of this criticism seems to overlook an important aspect - the strategic dimension of the criteria. This paper focuses on one...

The "Great Lockdown" implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a severe world-wide economic crisis. In euro area countries, sovereign debt-to-GDP ratios are on the rise and reductions in expected fiscal surpluses raise sustainability concerns amongst investors. This paper...

The Euro Area is characterized by little variation in unemployment and strongly procyclical labor productivity. We capture both characteristics in a New Keynesian business cycle model with labor search frictions, where labor can vary along three margins: employment, hours, and effort. We...

This paper aims at contributing to the debate regarding the role of the minimum wage in Brazil. This is carried out by assessing its potential effects on the labor market outcomes, as well in terms of poverty alleviation and fiscal impact. First, a succinct description of the institutional...

Having sufficient fiscal capacity to tax is a key hallmark and defining feature of states, and there is a growing literature trying to explain its origins. Existing empirical evidence on fiscal capacity is scarce and focuses on large, ex-post successful territories. In this paper we study the...

I study a case of market sharing agreements to provide evidence of coordination between colluding firms on the degree to which they compete against each other (henceforth referred to as head-to-head competition) and their bidding behavior. I also quantify the impact that coordinating...