This paper investigates the determinants of the service sector employment share in the EU-15, for the aggregate service sector, four sub-sectors and twelve service sector branches. Recently, both Europe and the US have experienced an increase in the share of service-related jobs in total...

An increasing number of central banks implement monetary policy via two standing facilities: a lending facility and a deposit facility. In this paper we show that it is socially optimal to implement a non-zero interest rate spread. We prove this result in a dynamic general equilibrium model...

The Savings Directive has been celebrated as a major political break-through in coordinating taxation in Europe. Against this background, the present paper evaluates the real-world effects of this directive. The directive has left a loophole by providing grandfathering (exemption from...

This paper investigates the interplay between social capital, innovation and per capita income growth in the European Union. We model and identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into higher income levels. In an empirical investigation of 102 European regions...

Using a country-industry panel dataset (EUKLEMS) we uncover a robust empirical regularity, namely that high-risk innovative sectors are relatively smaller in countries with strict employment protection legislation (EPL). To understand the mechanism, we develop a two-sector matching model where...

This paper analyzes the changes in the structure of trade as well as the developments in the capital account of Turkey since mid-1990s and discusses the possible composition of trade flows and Turkey's attractiveness for international capital inflows in the near future. Analysis of the long-term...

This paper attempts to evaluate the information content of money for the forecast of inflation, output, investment and consumption in the euro zone. It considers M1 and M3; a number of modifications to these aggregates is also proposed to enhance their forecast performance. The evaluation employs...

This paper examines whether immigrants increase the likelihood of unemployment among native-born workers in the European Union. Earlier papers measure the presence of immigrants in the local labor market by computing the share of the foreigners in specific regions. This paper, instead, utilizes...

There is clear evidence that fairness plays a role in redistribution. Individuals want to compensate others for their misfortune, while they allow them to enjoy the fruits of their effort. This paper introduces fairness in a tax-benefit scheme that is based on several characteristics in order to...