This paper constructs an efficiency-adjusted public capital stock series and re-examines the public capital and growth relationship for 52 developing countries. The results show that public capital is a significant contributor to economic growth. Although the estimated coefficient for the income...

The paper discusses the functioning of automatic fiscal stabilisers in Estonia. The aim of the research is to evaluate government budget sensitivity to economic fluctuations and thereby assess the importance of automatic fiscal stabilisers in Estonia. Specifically we are interested in whether...

The paper discusses the functioning of automatic fiscal stabilisers in Estonia. The aim of the research is to evaluate government budget sensitivity to economic fluctuations and thereby assess the importance of automatic fiscal stabilisers in Estonia. Specifically we are interested in whether...

During the past decade or so empirical literature on comparative development of nations has turned to investigation of "deep" or determinants of productivity and capital intensity, such as institutions, trade, geography and human capital.  In this paper I revisit this debate and make three...

Pension reform is high on the policy agenda of many advanced and emerging market economies. In advanced economies the challenge is generally to contain future increases in public pension spending as the population ages. In emerging market economies, the challenges are often different. Where...

This paper constructs an efficiency-adjusted public capital stock series and re-examines the public capital and growth relationship. The paper also examines the effects of four specific stages of the public investment process—appraisal, selection, implementation and evaluation—on capital...

The paper introduces methods that allow analysts to (i) decompose the estimates of unobserved quantities into observed data and (ii) impose subjective prior constraints on path estimates of unobserved shocks in structural economic models. For instance, decomposition of output gap to output,...

This article aims to argue with the wide-spread perception of discretionary fiscal policy as a poor macroeconomic stabilization tool, especially in comparison with the contemporary performance of monetary policy. European Monetary Union Member States are hit by the asymmetric shocks or respond...

In this short paper there will be introduced the stream of economic theory labelled as the New Economic Geography (NEG) and derived the core-periphery model, a flagship of the NEG. It is a model of two regions with imperfect competition and increasing returns to scale, where some properties of...

The paper discusses the role of stochastic trends in DSGE models and effects of stochastic detrending. We argue that explicit structural assumptions on trend behavior is convenient, namely for emerging countries. In emerging countries permanent shocks are an important part of business cycle...