Four alternative but related approaches to empirical evaluation of policy interventions are studied: social experiments, natural experiments, matching methods, and instrumental variables. In each case the necessary assumptions and the data requirements are considered for estimation of a number...

This paper tests the balance sheet theory, where the status of balance sheets affects the economy's response to monetary and other shocks. The theory predicts a positive effect of cash flow on investment, given fundamental determinants of investment. I use an empirical method developed by...

We consider the effects of the financial crisis and subsequent recession on world labour markets. It begins by cataloguing the adverse effects on output of the sudden collapse in demand brought about by the financial crisis in what has come to be called the Great Recession. Next we look at the...

An economy's production set is the collection of all net output vectors that the economy is capable of producing with a given technology and fixed quantities of primary factors of production. The boundary of this set is called the production possibility frontier or PPF. We show that, if the...

This article analyzes the determinants of market income distribution and governmental redistribution. The dependent variables are LIS data on market income inequality (measured by the Gini index) for households with a head aged 25 to 59 and the percent reduction in the Gini index by taxes and...

One proposal frequently raised to increase flexibility of the German labour market is the liberalization of the job protection law. It applies to those establishments with more than a cut-off number of employees. The argument examined in this paper is that this step in legal regulation hinders...