Very little is known about the effectiveness of SME policies, and a careful look at thestructure, mechanisms and incentives provided by these policies suggest caution in theirimplementation and, most importantly, the need to carefully and closely monitor their results.This paper relies on the...

We introduce a taxonomy that classifies industries using three criteria: net growth in thenumber of firms; the interrelationship between firm entry and firm exit; and the degree of urbanbiasin industry growth. We show that in 9 of 15 two-digit NAICS industries investigated, thereis evidence of...

Business support policies designed to raise productivity and employment are commonworldwide, but rigorous micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effects is rare. Weexploit multiple changes in the area-specific eligibility criteria for a major program to supportmanufacturing jobs...

We study a model where two parties, one from the left and one from the right, compete forposition. The election is to be held in the near future and the outcome is uncertain. Prior to theelection, the members of both parties nominate their prime ministerial candidates. Investorscare about the...

In practice, central banks have been confronted with a trade-off between stabilising inflation and output when dealing with rising oil prices. This contrasts with the result in the standard New Keynesian model that ensuring complete price stability is the optimal thing to do, even when an oil...

Recent theoretical work shows that changes in the volatility of inflation and/or unem-ployment affect equilibrium in°ation outcomes when the central banker's loss functionis asymmetric. We show that previous evidence offered in support of the propositionthat the volatility of unemployment helps...

The uniqueness of bounded local equilibria under interest rate rules is analyzed in a model with sticky information à la Mankiw and Reis (2002). The main results are tighter bounds on monetary policy than in sticky-price models, irrelevance ofthe degree of output-gap targeting for determinacy,...

We use a two-country model with a central bank maximizing union-wide welfareand two fiscal authorities minimizing comparable, but slightly differentcountry-wide losses. We analyze the rivalry between the three authorities inseven static games. Comparing a homogeneous with a heterogeneous...

This paper explores the optimal risk sharing arrangement between generations in an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth. We allow for nonseparable preferences, paying particular attention to the risk aversion of the old as well as overall “life-cycle” risk aversion. We provide...

This paper explains a currency crisis as an outcome of a switch in how monetarypolicy and fiscal policy are coordinated. The paper develops a model of an open economy in which monetary policy starts active, fiscal policy starts passive and, in a particular state of nature, monetary policy...