In this paper, we analyze the impact fiscal policy rules have on budget deficits and forecasting biases in official budget outlooks. Persistent budget deficits and over-optimistic budget forecasts have been observed in many countries in the past, especially in the euro area. To prevent such developments from happening in the future, fiscal rules have been revised or implemented with the aim to strengthen ...
The benefits of dual apprenticeship programs are usually discussed in the context of reducing structural unemployment rates, especially among the young. Related to this, the long-run benefits of dual apprenticeship programs are extensively analyzed in the literature. However, empirical evidence regarding the short-run effects of the business cycle on the number of apprenticeships is scarce. In this ...
What are the economic effects of a central bank that takes the evolution of house prices into account? In an attempt to answer this question, we use a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with a housing sector to explore the economic impacts of a central bank reacting to house price inflation. We examine this in the context of two different shocks that are associated with two ...
Intangible capital is an increasingly important factor of production in advanced economies. Governments in Europe and elsewhere promote investment in intangible assets. However, the potential role of intangibles for business cycles and the international transmission of shocks is not well understood. In this paper, we investigate the international business cycle effects of intangible capital. To this ...
After the outbreak of the global financial crisis, some governments in the EU experienced serious fiscal problems, while others were less affected. This paper seeks to shed light on the divergent fiscal performance in the EU countries before and after the outbreak of the crisis. Fiscal reaction functions of the primary balance are estimated for different groups of EU countries using quarterly data ...