We investigate the sources of macroeconomic (output and inflation) variability in selected European countries within and outside the European Monetary Union: Germany, Italy, Austria, the UK and Poland. Using quarterly data from 1985:1 to 2005:4, we estimate a Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR)...

In this paper, we empirically assess the impact of government debt on two key determinants of long-term growth, i.e., private investment and productivity, on a panel of 20 OECD economies from 1970 to 2009. Our main finding is that high public debts are followed by significant and linear declines...

Using European Union Labour Force Survey data on over 2.5 million workers in Italian regions for the period 1999-2010, we investigate the determinants of involuntary non-standard (temporary and part-time) employment (INE). We find that regional differences significantly affect the probability of...

We analyse how fiscal decentralization affects the volatility of government consumption extending the existing literature that mainly deals with the effects of the former on government size. Using data for 97 developed and developing countries from 1971 to 2010, we find that a higher degree of...

A relevant mismatch between tax and expenditure decentralization characterizes many industrialized countries. The former is usually less pronounced than the latter, resulting in asymmetric fiscal decentralization arrangements. We investigate the nature of this asymmetry using a theoretical...

We study the relationship between discretionary fiscal policy and macroeconomic stability in 21 OECD countries over the 1985-2012 period. The novelties of our contribution lie in the use of annual panel data, whereas most of the existing evidence is cross-sectional, and more importantly in the...

Electronic reputation mechanisms aim at signaling the quality of traders and at hampering misbehavior. When a buyer rates a seller, the main aspect to keep into account should be the consistency between the good’s advertised characteristics and the actual good itself. On the other hand, the...