1,720,969 research outputs found
The Well-Being Gap during the Great Recession: The Role of Growth and Institutions
Full text linkThe purpose of this paper is to examine the well-being dynamics across European countries during the Great Recession and to investigate the potential role of the quality of formal institutions in mitigating the negative effect of the economic downturn. This study uses the club convergence methodology by Phillips and Sul (2007; 2009) to group EU-28 countries that present similar features in terms of well-being during the period 2005-2017. The study also applies probit models to investigate the potential role of several social and institutional characteristics that are supposed to affect subjective well-being levels. The results show the existence of a “well-being gap” among European countries. The economic downturn started in 2008 has impacted the perceived well-being more in low-income and low-growth countries (less developed transition and Southern countries), than in high-income and more developed transition countries. The study also shows that countries that present well-functioning institutional systems and, more in general, good institutional performances show higher life satisfaction levels and tend to be more resilient to the negative effects generated by the economic shock
The Regional Economic Impact of Modern Pandemics and Epidemics.
No full textThe current COVID-19 pandemic had, and is still having, damaging effects
on economic activities. However, similarly to past pandemic and epidemic episodes, its
impact risks to be geographically uneven. Based on pandemic and epidemic episodes
of the latest two decades, in this paper we try to conjecture the possible future impact
that the current pandemic may have on several regional outcomes such as per capita
gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. Specifically, we investigate how this
impact differs across regions, evaluating some of the different channels through which
the heterogeneous effect of health crises may be transmitted to regional economies
Uncertainty and innovation in renewable energy
No full textThis paper empirically investigates the impact of economic and policy uncertainty on green innovation for a sample of 81 advanced and emerging market economies during the period 1976–2020. Our results show that increases in uncertainty lead to a long-lasting decrease in green innovation, measured by the number of new green energy patents. This effect holds for a wide set of technologies, it is larger during recessions and periods of higher financial stress, and in countries with less stringent environment protection regulations. Importantly, the effect of un- certainty on green patents is larger than on non-green patents. Results are robust to several sensitivity tests, including an instrumental variable approach and a difference-in-differences strategy
The Regional Effects of Public Spending on Active Labor Market Policies: Evidence from Advanced Economies
No full textThis paper examines the regional effects of public spending on Active Labor Market polices (ALMPs). Using an unbalanced sample of 308 regions belonging to 29 OECD Economies for the period 1995-2011, we show that discretionary increases in public spending on active labor market policies at the national level have statistically significant short- and medium-term effect in reducing regional unemployment rate, while raising
regional output. These effects tend to be larger during periods of low GDP growth, and when complemented by a larger share of cohesion fund expenditures
Keeping Public Debt Sustainable in an Equitable Way
Full text linkThe COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 5 million lives thus far. This grim figure would have been higher still without the strong and timely fiscal support provided by governments around the globe, including support for health sector and the development and deployment of vaccines. The IMF has noted that “in 2020, fiscal policy proved its worth. The increasing public debt in 2020 was fully justified by the need to respond to COVID 19 and its economic, social, and financial consequences” (Gaspar, 2021). How to keep debt sustainable is becoming a policy imperative, made all the more challenging by the lingering effects of the pandemic, particularly on low-income groups. In this article we summarize our recent work on the distributional effects of past major epidemics in this century prior to COVID-19 and the role that fiscal support played in mitigating these effects (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2021a; 2021b). The policy message is that more inclusive and targeted fiscal policies are needed in coming years if governments wish to achieve public debt sustainability without exacerbating inequality
Public expenditure multipliers and informality
No full textThis paper investigates the role of informality in affecting the magnitude of the public expenditure multiplier in a panel of 142 countries, using the local projections method. We find a strong negative relationship between the degree of informality and the size of the multiplier. This result holds irrespective of the level of economic development and institutional quality and is robust to additional country characteristics such as trade and financial openness and exchange rate regime. In a two-sector New-Keynesian model, we rationalize this result by showing that fiscal shocks raise the relative price of official goods, thereby shifting demand towards the informal sector. This reallocation effect increases with the level of informality, because a larger informal sector is associated with a stronger appreciation of relative prices in response to fiscal shocks, and thus reduces the multiplier
Will the Economic Impact of COVID-19 Persist? Prognosis from 21st Century Pandemics
No full textCOVID-19 has had a disruptive economic impact in 2020, but how long its impact will persist remains unclear. We offer a prognosis based on an analysis of the effects of five previous major epidemics in this century. We find that these pandemics led to significant and persistent reductions in disposable income, along with increases in unemployment, income inequality and public debt-to-GDP ratios. Energy use and CO2 emissions dropped, but mostly because of the persistent decline in the level of economic activity rather than structural changes in the energy sector. Applying our empirical estimates to project the impact of COVID-19, we foresee significant scarring in economic performance and income distribution through 2025, which be associated with an increase in poverty of about 75 million people. Policy responses more effective than those in the past would be required to forestall these outcomes
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
- …
