Rent caps can have significant unintended consequences through lower housing supply. Instead of making housing more affordable, purchase subsidies have provided a windfall for sellers. The real estate transfer tax levied on properties' purchase price substantially decreases property prices. The...

We present a novel approach to assess the effect of EU cohesion policy on economic activity. Project-level data on EU funding is combined with nighttime light emissions data. Higher EU funding is associated with increased economic activity at the municipal level. Remote sensing data can provide...

We estimate the fiscal effect of a global effective minimum tax for Germany, the EU27, and the world. Our results indicate that Germany and - on aggregate - the EU27 would benefit fiscally from a global effective minimum tax. However, the size of the additional tax revenue depends on the design...

The use of economic sanctions has increased rapidly since the end of the Cold War. Economic sanctions can inflict huge economic costs on target countries. Sanctions may also have unintended effects and cause collateral damage. The effectiveness of sanctions in terms of meeting the proximate...

Radical parties and populists benefit from deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. For voters, the overall economic development appears to be more important than their actual personal economic situation. The most important economic factors explaining the rise of populism as well as the loss of...

Most workers were favorably surprised by their productivity in work from home (WFH) mode during the pandemic. Employer plans for WFH levels after the pandemic rise strongly with these individual-level productivity surprises. Planned WFH levels also rise with the cumulative stringency of...

Providing information about the economic cost of sexual orientation discrimination significantly increases support for measures to safeguard equal employment opportuni ties for lesbians and gays. Treatment effect spills over to support for equal employment opportunities based on ethnic origin,...

Middle class incomes in the EU are highest in Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, Austria, and Sweden, and lowest in Eastern European countries. The middle class in Bulgaria and Romania are at the bottom of EU nominal incomes, but their living costs are just half of the EU average. When accounting for...

Governments need to either cut other spending or raise more tax revenue to service the additional debt resulting from shocks like the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper considers the case when governments decide to raise additional revenue. A key policy issue is how the additional tax burden should...

Experience with European fiscal rules has shown that European rules cannot prevent member states from accumulating high debt levels if they want to. The fact that the ECB increasingly positions itself as a fiscal bailout mechanism implies that the risk of short-term fiscal crises due to a...