Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1406099x.2023.2254488
Jose Garcia-Louzao, Valentin Jouvanceau
{"title":"Wage growth in Lithuania from 2008 to 2020: observed drivers and underlying shocks*","authors":"Jose Garcia-Louzao, Valentin Jouvanceau","doi":"10.1080/1406099x.2023.2254488","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099x.2023.2254488","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49109982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2023.2173915
Ginters Bušs, Patrick Grüning
ABSTRACT We develop a fiscal dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for policy simulation and scenario analysis purposes tailored to Latvia, a small open economy in a monetary union. The fiscal sector elements comprise public investment, public consumption, government transfers that are asymmetrically directed to both optimizing and restricted (hand-to-mouth) households, cyclical unemployment benefits, foreign ownership of public debt, import content in public consumption and investment, and fiscal rules for each fiscal instrument. The model features a search-and-matching labour market friction with pro-cyclical labour costs, a financial accelerator mechanism, and import content in final goods. We estimate the model using Latvian data, study the new channels in the model, and provide a comprehensive analysis on the macroeconomic effects of the fiscal elements. Our results indicate that Latvian fiscal policy was pro-cyclical during the boom-bust period of 2004–2010 and that foreign ownership of public debt breaks Ricardian equivalence and raises fiscal multipliers.
{"title":"Fiscal DSGE model for Latvia","authors":"Ginters Bušs, Patrick Grüning","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2023.2173915","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2023.2173915","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We develop a fiscal dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for policy simulation and scenario analysis purposes tailored to Latvia, a small open economy in a monetary union. The fiscal sector elements comprise public investment, public consumption, government transfers that are asymmetrically directed to both optimizing and restricted (hand-to-mouth) households, cyclical unemployment benefits, foreign ownership of public debt, import content in public consumption and investment, and fiscal rules for each fiscal instrument. The model features a search-and-matching labour market friction with pro-cyclical labour costs, a financial accelerator mechanism, and import content in final goods. We estimate the model using Latvian data, study the new channels in the model, and provide a comprehensive analysis on the macroeconomic effects of the fiscal elements. Our results indicate that Latvian fiscal policy was pro-cyclical during the boom-bust period of 2004–2010 and that foreign ownership of public debt breaks Ricardian equivalence and raises fiscal multipliers.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"1 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47373852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2023.2198284
Hazwan Haini, Pang Wei Loon
ABSTRACT This study examines the productivity and efficiency spillovers in the presence of trade linkages in 27 European Union countries from 1990 to 2019. The European Union is one of the largest trading blocs in the world and has implemented costly policies and reforms to improve productivity growth. Meanwhile, trade-induced productivity and efficiency spillovers have often been overlooked in the literature, and examining them could provide further clarity to the productivity puzzle. Using a spatial Durbin model and a bilateral trade matrix, this study estimates a spatial stochastic production frontier model using data from the Penn World Table and the World Integrated Trade Solution. We decompose production frontier estimates to obtain the spillover effects of total factor productivity growth and technical efficiency from a network of bilateral trading partners. Our results provide evidence of productivity and efficiency spillovers; however, the gains are uneven. Policy implications are discussed.
{"title":"Do regional integration and trade linkages promote productivity spillovers? Evidence from the European Union","authors":"Hazwan Haini, Pang Wei Loon","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2023.2198284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2023.2198284","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examines the productivity and efficiency spillovers in the presence of trade linkages in 27 European Union countries from 1990 to 2019. The European Union is one of the largest trading blocs in the world and has implemented costly policies and reforms to improve productivity growth. Meanwhile, trade-induced productivity and efficiency spillovers have often been overlooked in the literature, and examining them could provide further clarity to the productivity puzzle. Using a spatial Durbin model and a bilateral trade matrix, this study estimates a spatial stochastic production frontier model using data from the Penn World Table and the World Integrated Trade Solution. We decompose production frontier estimates to obtain the spillover effects of total factor productivity growth and technical efficiency from a network of bilateral trading partners. Our results provide evidence of productivity and efficiency spillovers; however, the gains are uneven. Policy implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"64 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47574858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2023.2187946
Nerijus Černiauskas
ABSTRACT Having a child can have a heavy toll on parents' earnings, especially in the first years after childbirth, with mothers often being more affected than fathers. This is particularly true in the three Baltic states, with relatively generous parental leave benefits compared to the EU and norms encouraging mothers to care for children. I carry out an event study to estimate the effect of having a child on the earnings of both genders and find that the earnings of females reduce by half in the first calendar year after childbirth and by 20% to 33% in the second, while male earnings do not change in either period. This results in a widening earnings gap in the Baltics, more so than in several comparison countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Norway), in the first two years after the birth of the first child.
{"title":"The short run effects of childbirth on parents’ earnings in the Baltics","authors":"Nerijus Černiauskas","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2023.2187946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2023.2187946","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Having a child can have a heavy toll on parents' earnings, especially in the first years after childbirth, with mothers often being more affected than fathers. This is particularly true in the three Baltic states, with relatively generous parental leave benefits compared to the EU and norms encouraging mothers to care for children. I carry out an event study to estimate the effect of having a child on the earnings of both genders and find that the earnings of females reduce by half in the first calendar year after childbirth and by 20% to 33% in the second, while male earnings do not change in either period. This results in a widening earnings gap in the Baltics, more so than in several comparison countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Norway), in the first two years after the birth of the first child.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"45 - 63"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48800960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2023.2228589
S. Cichocki, Andrzej Torój
ABSTRACT The size of the informal economy in Poland is estimated by means of the Currency Demand Approach (CDA). Using quarterly data for the period 1999–2019, we adopt two separate econometric approaches. First, we specify a single equation model to estimate it with the Fully-Modified OLS method. Second, the CDA coefficients are treated as a cointegrating vector in a cointegrated VAR. The size of the informal economy in Poland is found to have diminished from about 32% of GDP in 2000 to about 12% of GDP in 2019. We provide confidence intervals for our estimates which, to our best knowledge, are rarely presented in the literature; their width ranges from 3 to 7% of GDP.
{"title":"Estimating the size of informal economy in a post-transition country – the case of Poland","authors":"S. Cichocki, Andrzej Torój","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2023.2228589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2023.2228589","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The size of the informal economy in Poland is estimated by means of the Currency Demand Approach (CDA). Using quarterly data for the period 1999–2019, we adopt two separate econometric approaches. First, we specify a single equation model to estimate it with the Fully-Modified OLS method. Second, the CDA coefficients are treated as a cointegrating vector in a cointegrated VAR. The size of the informal economy in Poland is found to have diminished from about 32% of GDP in 2000 to about 12% of GDP in 2019. We provide confidence intervals for our estimates which, to our best knowledge, are rarely presented in the literature; their width ranges from 3 to 7% of GDP.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"23 1","pages":"91 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42615807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2022.2096732
J. C. Cuestas, Mercedes Monfort, Bojan Shimbov
ABSTRACT In this paper we contribute to the literature on determining the real exchange rate by using models that incorporate structural breaks and nonlinearities. We estimate cointegrated dynamic ordinary least squares regressions and quantile regressions. We find that the estimated coefficients for the EU members from central and eastern Europe are different to those for the other member states. We also find that the models are different before and after the crisis that started in 2008, and this affects the outcome of the long-run equations for the EU15 + Cyprus and Malta.
{"title":"Has the relationship between the real exchange rate and its fundamentals changed over time?","authors":"J. C. Cuestas, Mercedes Monfort, Bojan Shimbov","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2022.2096732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2022.2096732","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this paper we contribute to the literature on determining the real exchange rate by using models that incorporate structural breaks and nonlinearities. We estimate cointegrated dynamic ordinary least squares regressions and quantile regressions. We find that the estimated coefficients for the EU members from central and eastern Europe are different to those for the other member states. We also find that the models are different before and after the crisis that started in 2008, and this affects the outcome of the long-run equations for the EU15 + Cyprus and Malta.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"22 1","pages":"68 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41482058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2022.2109555
Ludmila Fadejeva, Oļegs Tkačevs
ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of tax incentives for long-term savings on total private savings using data for Latvia contained in HFCS 2014 and 2017. The survey shows that contributions to tax-favoured savings plans are not associated with lower consumer spending and therefore do not contribute to an increase in private savings. Instead, these savings are achieved by lowering other, non-tax-favoured savings. This substitution effect on non-tax-favoured savings remains statistically significant even when excluding households with very low consumption levels and the ones whose reference person is relatively young/old and with a low level of education. However, the observed effect is not significant at the very bottom of the distribution of non-tax-favoured savings. The results of this study raise concerns that without additional measures to encourage retirement savings, particularly in the lower segment of the savings distribution, income inequality among retirees will continue rising.
{"title":"The effectiveness of tax incentives to encourage private savings","authors":"Ludmila Fadejeva, Oļegs Tkačevs","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2022.2109555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2022.2109555","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of tax incentives for long-term savings on total private savings using data for Latvia contained in HFCS 2014 and 2017. The survey shows that contributions to tax-favoured savings plans are not associated with lower consumer spending and therefore do not contribute to an increase in private savings. Instead, these savings are achieved by lowering other, non-tax-favoured savings. This substitution effect on non-tax-favoured savings remains statistically significant even when excluding households with very low consumption levels and the ones whose reference person is relatively young/old and with a low level of education. However, the observed effect is not significant at the very bottom of the distribution of non-tax-favoured savings. The results of this study raise concerns that without additional measures to encourage retirement savings, particularly in the lower segment of the savings distribution, income inequality among retirees will continue rising.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"22 1","pages":"110 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47814022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2022.2097370
Ola Grytten, Zenonas Norkus, J. Markevičiūtė, J. Šiliņš
ABSTRACT The paper provides an examination of interwar Latvia’s national accounts, checking their usability for estimating interwar economic growth performance. According to the authoritative account of Roses and Wolf [(2010). Aggregate growth, 1913–1950. In S. Broadberry, & K. H. O’Rourke (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe, vol 2. 1870 to the present (pp. 183–207). Cambridge UP.], based on indirect estimation methods, Latvia’s GDPpc growth rate from 1929 to 1938 was the highest in Europe. However, according to Aizsilnieks [(1968). Latvijas saimniecības vēsture, 1914–1945. Daugava.] interwar national income estimates show that the Latvian economy stagnated in the 1930s. This paper’s main findings are that applying historical price indices to the existing interwar output estimates supports the stagnation thesis. However, the national income estimates lack validity and reliability due to unpersistent or unknown methodology. Hence, changes in real output cannot be established without new calculations according to the contemporary System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) framework.
{"title":"Can the economic growth of interwar Latvia be estimated by contemporary national accounts?","authors":"Ola Grytten, Zenonas Norkus, J. Markevičiūtė, J. Šiliņš","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2022.2097370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2022.2097370","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The paper provides an examination of interwar Latvia’s national accounts, checking their usability for estimating interwar economic growth performance. According to the authoritative account of Roses and Wolf [(2010). Aggregate growth, 1913–1950. In S. Broadberry, & K. H. O’Rourke (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe, vol 2. 1870 to the present (pp. 183–207). Cambridge UP.], based on indirect estimation methods, Latvia’s GDPpc growth rate from 1929 to 1938 was the highest in Europe. However, according to Aizsilnieks [(1968). Latvijas saimniecības vēsture, 1914–1945. Daugava.] interwar national income estimates show that the Latvian economy stagnated in the 1930s. This paper’s main findings are that applying historical price indices to the existing interwar output estimates supports the stagnation thesis. However, the national income estimates lack validity and reliability due to unpersistent or unknown methodology. Hence, changes in real output cannot be established without new calculations according to the contemporary System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) framework.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"22 1","pages":"90 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48854629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2022.2149976
Merilen Laurimäe, T. Paas, Alari Paulus
ABSTRACT Many countries implemented wage compensation measures during the COVID-19 crisis to alleviate income losses and avoid employment reductions. We focus on the gender dimension of incomes in Estonia, which has been grappling with the highest gender wage gap in Europe, and investigate whether the crisis and related wage compensation may have worsened existing gender imbalances. Using detailed administrative datasets and EUROMOD microsimulation model, we show that the COVID-19 crisis had a significant negative effect on employment income for both men and women, but the wage compensation implemented in 2020 appeared to cushion these effects. Income losses were slightly higher for men, but the cushioning effect of the compensation was higher for women. Overall, income-related gender disparities did not change significantly during the crisis. Still, the wage compensation measure has contributed to preventing income-related gender disparities increasing further, particularly in the hotels and restaurants sector and wholesale and retail trade sector.
{"title":"The effect of COVID-19 and the wage compensation measure on income-related gender disparities","authors":"Merilen Laurimäe, T. Paas, Alari Paulus","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2022.2149976","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2022.2149976","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Many countries implemented wage compensation measures during the COVID-19 crisis to alleviate income losses and avoid employment reductions. We focus on the gender dimension of incomes in Estonia, which has been grappling with the highest gender wage gap in Europe, and investigate whether the crisis and related wage compensation may have worsened existing gender imbalances. Using detailed administrative datasets and EUROMOD microsimulation model, we show that the COVID-19 crisis had a significant negative effect on employment income for both men and women, but the wage compensation implemented in 2020 appeared to cushion these effects. Income losses were slightly higher for men, but the cushioning effect of the compensation was higher for women. Overall, income-related gender disparities did not change significantly during the crisis. Still, the wage compensation measure has contributed to preventing income-related gender disparities increasing further, particularly in the hotels and restaurants sector and wholesale and retail trade sector.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"22 1","pages":"146 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45053588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/1406099X.2022.2112485
Eva Branten
ABSTRACT This study investigates the role of risk attitudes and financial expectations in households’ borrowing behaviour. The central research question is whether risk aversion and optimistic expectations provide additional information beyond the main economic and sociodemographic characteristics in predicting applications for credit and the size of debt. The paper uses microdata from the Estonian Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) and estimates probit and Heckman models. My analysis shows that risk-tolerant households apply for loans more often than risk-averse households do and that their loans are larger. The variables describing the household's expectations for its future financial situation are on their own related to the decision to apply for a loan, but they do not contain any relevant additional information beyond the main economic and sociodemographic characteristics of the household.
{"title":"The role of risk attitudes and expectations in household borrowing: evidence from Estonia","authors":"Eva Branten","doi":"10.1080/1406099X.2022.2112485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1406099X.2022.2112485","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study investigates the role of risk attitudes and financial expectations in households’ borrowing behaviour. The central research question is whether risk aversion and optimistic expectations provide additional information beyond the main economic and sociodemographic characteristics in predicting applications for credit and the size of debt. The paper uses microdata from the Estonian Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) and estimates probit and Heckman models. My analysis shows that risk-tolerant households apply for loans more often than risk-averse households do and that their loans are larger. The variables describing the household's expectations for its future financial situation are on their own related to the decision to apply for a loan, but they do not contain any relevant additional information beyond the main economic and sociodemographic characteristics of the household.","PeriodicalId":43756,"journal":{"name":"Baltic Journal of Economics","volume":"22 1","pages":"126 - 145"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47806368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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