Towards the end of 2009, the world economy was recovering from its deepest recession since the end of World War II. Most countries around the world took resort to fiscal policy in order to foster this recovery. In this paper, we first discuss the pros and cons of discretionary fiscal policy from...

This paper argues that empirical economic analysis in court proceedings is subject to important economic and legal restrictions, cumulating in a fundamental trade-off between accuracy and practicality. We draw lessons from two influential German court cases - the paper wholesaler cartel decision...

Nordhaus (2008) has developed a testing strategy for what he calls "Baumol's diseases", by which name he designates a number of by-products of structural change that are unwanted from an economic policy perspective. He finds that the U.S. economy is strongly affected by the "diseases". This...

This paper examines the costs of recent sovereign defaults using synthetic control methods, a novel econometric technique based on comparative case studies. Evidence on the effects of debt crises is thus presented on a case-by-case basis, uncovering large variations in country-specific...