This paper revisits Political Budget Cycles (PBCs) in the enlarged European Union (EU). Based on a panel of 25 current EU member states from 1996 to 2012, we show that governments frequently fiscally stimulate the economy prior to elections; a phenomenon that is seemingly not only an ‘Eastern...

Since 2005, the EU ETS has provided a market-based price signal for European carbon emissions, accompanied by increasing economic research related to this policy instrument. In this paper, we carry out a review of the empirical literature examining allowance price formation. A consensus has...