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Fiscal Policy Rules for Stabilisation and Growth: A Simulation Analysis of Deficit and Expenditure Targets in a Monetary Union

We analyse the effectiveness of fiscal policy rules for business cycle stabilisation in a monetary union using a quarterly macro-econometric model of Germany. The simulations compare a deficit target and an expenditure target under a range of supply, demand and fiscal shocks. Their effects are evaluated by their impact on prices and output. The analysis demonstrates that in general the deficit target ...

International Support for Domestic Climate Policies in Developing Countries

A Structural Approach to Estimating the Effect of Taxation on the Labour Market Dynamics of Older Workers

We estimate a dynamic structural life-cycle model of employment, non-employment and retirement that includes endogenous accumulation of human capital and intertemporal non-separabilities in preferences. In addition, the model accounts for the effects of income tax, social security contributions and the transfer system on work incentives. The structural parameter estimates are used to evaluate the employment ...

Trends in Economic Research: An International Perspective

Given the recent efforts in several countries to reorganize the research institutional setting to improve research productivity, our analysis addresses the following questions: To which extent has the recent awareness over international quality standards in economics around the world been reflected in research performance? How have individual countries fared? Do research quantity and quality indicators ...

Terrorism Risk Concern in Europe

Motivated by the Bayesian framework, we explore terrorism risk perception differences across European countries. Perception variation is explained by the long-term terrorism countries face, while the cyclical part of terrorism does not seem to play any role.

Italy's Fiscal Crisis

Italy is presently one of the most vulnerable economies in the eurozone. Over the past twenty years it has failed to adapt to increasing global competition and its public finances have deteriorated dramatically. Even with huge fiscal support from the other members of the eurozone, Italy’s perspectives look rather bleak. How did this situation come about? Did Italy’s EMU membership make things wors ...

Minimum Wage: Number of Eligible Employees Well Below Five Million

In the fall of 2013, DIW Berlin presented a study on minimum wages which was based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study for 2011. The data for 2012 have since become available. As expected, in terms of structures for employees with gross hourly earnings of less than 8.50 euros, i.e., those expected to receive the planned minimum wage, little has changed. These include, to an above-average degree, ...

Assessing the Sustainability of Government Debt: On the Different States of the Debt/GDP Process

This paper discusses the type of trajectory a country's public debt path follows. In particular, a Markov switching ADF model is used to assess the sustainability of public debt by testing whether a government's present value borrowing constraint holds. Building on the work of Raybaudi et al. (2004) and Chen (2011), the model in this paper generalizes their methodology. The number of lags and states ...

A Description of the Operative Decision-Making Process of a Power Generating Company on the Nordic Electricity Market

In a liberalised electricity market, power generating companies face various trading possibilities. In addition, they have to take scheduling decisions. Both kinds of decisions are affected by uncertainties, e.g. power plant outages, uncertain market prices for electricity or imperfect wind power forecasts. This paper presents an overview of the decision-making process of a power generating company ...

Maternal Labor Market Return and Domestic Work after Childbirth in Britain and Germany

This study investigates how the duration of maternal labor market interruptions and mothers' employment status after return relate to the division of domestic work in couples after childbirth in West Germany, East Germany, and Britain. It extends the literature by considering how these two aspects of postnatal labor market return decisions of mothers may give rise to or counteract growing gender inequality ...