In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe gradually pulled ahead of other world regions in terms of technological creativity, population growth, and income per capita. We argue that superior institutions for the creation and dissemination of productive knowledge...

The EU experience with youth unemployment has changed over recent years with the launchand re-launch of the Lisbon Strategy and the Bologna process. A dramatic shift has takenplace from the 1990s emphasis on labour market flexibility as a tool to abate youth long termunemployment to the more...

Starting from Professor Kornai´s assertion about the necessity to focus on the long-termperspectives of the transformation process, we analyze in this paper the Lisbon performanceof the countries of the European Union from such a long-term, structural perspective. Wepresent in a simple form the...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic shocks on infant mortality in India andinvestigates likely mechanisms. A recent OECD-dominated literature shows that mortality atmost ages is pro-cyclical but similar analyses for poorer countries are scarce, and bothincome risk and mortality...

Using micro-data on six surveys the Gallup World Poll 2005-2023, the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 1993-2022, Eurobarometer 1991-2022, the UK Covid Social Survey Panel, 2020-2022, the European Social Survey 2002-2020 and the IPSOS Happiness Survey 2018-2023 we show...

This paper empirically examines the degree of persistence in four precious metal prices (i.e., gold, palladium, platinum, and silver) during the last four U.S. recessions. Unit root tests and fractional integration techniques suggest that gold still is the most prominent safe haven asset within...

This study identifies a new mechanism to account for the persistent gender differences in earnings after childbirth. Aside from women's voluntary wage cuts in pursuit of family-friendly job amenities, we claim that adverse labor market conditions at the time of childbearing widen the gender gap...

This paper studies short-time work arrangements (ERTEs) when aggregate risk is partially sector-specific. In Spain, the Great Recession and the pandemic recession (aka the Great Contagion) can both be understood as being driven partially by large sector-specific shocks. However, the latter shows...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic shocks on infant mortality in India and investigates likely mechanisms. A recent OECD-dominated literature shows that mortality at most ages is pro-cyclical but similar analyses for poorer countries are scarce, and both income risk and...

This paper estimates an unobserved components model to explore the macro dynamics of entrepreneurship in Spain and the US. We ask whether entrepreneurship exhibits hysteresis, defined as a macro dynamic structure in which cyclical fluctuations have persistent effects on the natural rate of...