Cohesion policy in the European Union (EU) has been widely accepted as a tool to advance the catch-up process, i.e., helping member countries with lower GDP per capita to grow faster economically in order to arrive at similarly high-income levels as member countries with higher GDP per capita....

The 2008-09 crisis has shown that some euro area member countries were unable to sufficiently stabilize their economies which has given rise to a debate about deeper fiscal integration in Europe. In this paper, we analyze the redistributive and stabilizing effects of two scenarios of fiscal...

We analyze different alternatives how a common unemployment insurance system for the euro area (EA) could be designed and assess their effectiveness to act as an insurance device in the presence of asymmetric macroeconomic shocks. Running counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the...

The 2008-09 crisis has shown that some euro area member countries were unable to sufficiently stabilize their economies which has given rise to a debate about deeper fiscal integration in Europe. In this paper, we analyze the redistributive and stabilizing effects of two scenarios of fiscal...

We analyze different alternatives how a common unemployment insurance system for the euro area (EA) could be designed and assess their effectiveness to act as an insurance device in the presence of asymmetric macroeconomic shocks. Running counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the...

For creditor countries on the periphery of the dollar standard such as China with current account surpluses, foreign mercantile pressure to appreciate their currencies and become more flexible is misplaced. Just the expectation of variable exchange appreciation seriously disrupts the natural...

We focus on the influence of institutional variables on business cycle synchronisation for 20 OECD countries from 1979 to 2003. More precisely, this paper derives measures for similarity of institutions and structural reforms, and investigates direct and delayed reform effects on synchronisation...

While a widespread consensus exists among macroeconomists that the German labour market reforms in 2003-2005 have successfully contributed to the decline of the unemployment rate, critics claim that the reforms led to wage restraint and consequently consumption dampening accompanied by...

We study the effect of the first global multilateral standard for the automatic exchange of information (AEOI), the so called Common Reporting Standard (CRS), on cross border tax evasion. Employing newly available bilateral data on cross-border deposits, we find that the CRS induced a reduction...

As a result of technical development and globalisation, investing abroad has become much more accessible, and thus capable of facilitating the transference of wealth and income to offshore locations with the aim of evading tax obligations at home. In this regard, the Automatic Exchange of...