This paper uses an extended version of 'FiMod - A DSGE Model for Fiscal Policy Simulations' (Stähler and Thomas, 2011) with endogenous job destruction decisions by private firms to analyze the effects of several currently discussed labor market reforms on the Spanish economy. The main focus is...

The Italian Great Recession has a double-dip pattern. After the start of the global financial crisis, Italy experienced a second serious recession in 2011 because of the sovereign debt crisis. The reaction of Italian governments was mild at the beginning and more convinced since the start of the...

This research note discusses the Euro crisis in Greece in light of the referendum of July the 5th. It lays out the social and political costs of a GREXIT, but also of a continuing austerity policy. It proposes a reform policy fostering growth in Greece and discusses the role of conditionality....

This paper describes subjective wage inequality and the demand for redistribution in Austria using individuals' estimates of occupational wages from the International Social Survey Program. Although these estimates differ widely across individuals, the data clearly show that most individuals...

This paper studies differences in inequality perceptions, distributional norms, and redistributive preferences between East and West Germany. As expected, there are substantial differences with respect to all three of these measures. Surprisingly, however, differences in distributional norms are...

The Peruvian economy has exhibited remarkable growth in the past 20 years. Good tax and monetary policies, along with comprehensive structural adjustment, which has attracted substantial foreign investment, are regarded as the pillars of this success. Notwithstanding the advances experienced on...

There is a growing debate about complementing the European Monetary Union by a more comprehensive fiscal union. Against this background, this paper emphasizes that there is a trade-off in designing a system of fiscal transfers ("fiscal capacity") in a union between members of different size. A...

This work analyzes the evolution of real public expenditures of local and regional administrations (LRA), in Portugal, in the period after the Second World War. It also aims to estimate the elasticities associated to determinants, which explain the found growth. As most relevant results, it is...

In this paper, we propose a new methodology for the assessment of EU’s regional policies, making use of the HERMIN macro econometric model. A major feature of our approach is that allows us to compare the actual evolution of the economy under analysis, with and without European funds, so that...

The paper presents an intertemporal utility model that determines the effects of elections on the public expenditure composition. Conventional political budget cycle models describe incumbents as concerned only with the conditions that guarantee re-appointment. Aiming at achieving re-election,...