The study uses a synthetic control method to estimate the local economic cost of Brexit. The vast majority of regions in the UK have lost as a result of Brexit. Since losses tend to be concentrated in relatively prosperous regions, Brexit has reduced regional inequalities (“levelling up“) while pushing down national output (“levelling down“ in the aggregate). Using both aggregate data from local...
This paper studies and compares the effect of different adverse life events -- job loss, disability and health shocks, divorce and spousal death -- on individuals' income trajectories. We use a harmonized design across events in terms of methodology and data: matching difference-in-difference with exhaustive Dutch administrative registers. We assess the effect of adverse events on different...
Does increased legal infrastructure lead to higher intimate partner violence (IPV) reporting and empower victims to leave abusive relationships? Structural barriers often prevent IPV victims from seeking help, with two-thirds of female victims in Europe neither reporting incidents to the police nor accessing support services. I study the rollout of women’s shelters and the introduction of the 2002...
Achieving a balanced monetary-fiscal policy mix in the euro area is crucial to ensure that monetary policy is able to fulfil its primary price stability objective. This paper outlines, from an economic and legal perspective, the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy in light of the current monetary and fiscal stance and, in particular, the “quasi-fiscal” effects of some unconventional monetary ...
Recent proposals for a European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) favor a reinsurance framework. In this paper, we use a regime-switching open economy DSGE model with bank defaults to assess the relative efficiency of such a scheme. We find that reinsurance by EDIS is more effective in stabilizing real activity, credit, and welfare than a national fiscal backstop. We demonstrate that risk-weighted contributions ...
Disruptions of labor market trajectories have lasting effects on later economic success. Displacement due to forced labor conscription is a disruption that remains understudied despite its continued prevalence in contemporary contexts. I investigate the consequences of exposure to forced labor conscription for individuals' long-term labor market outcomes. I exploit the fact that cohorts of Dutch...
As a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine, natural gas prices skyrocketed in 2022 and Germany in particular felt the impact of its strong dependency on Russia. Prices have since relaxed, the European natural gas industry has overcome the uncertainty due to the energy crisis in 2022, and the industry also survived the slump in Russian natural gas imports without supply interruptions. However, Russia ...