Economia Politica最新文献

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model that accounts for both interest groups’ influence and citizens’ preferences over the determination of immigration policy. Based on a common agency model of lobbying (Grossman & Helpman, American Economic Review, 84(4), 833–850, 1994), we analyze the setting of an immigration policy as a political compromise pressured by an industry lobby and a trade union that have opposed interests. They both lobby the government through direct influence by offering political campaign contributions. We also account for the impact of indirect political influence of populist movements that display anti-immigrant narratives in public discourse. The latter lead citizens to make inference errors over immigration effects. We investigate the policy distortion that results from the interaction between direct and indirect political influence. In doing so, we address the joint impact of economic and cultural considerations on immigration policy. Our model helps describe immigration policy switches in Germany and Sweden.

This paper aims to: a) contribute to the empirical literature on induced technical change by investigating the wage-productivity nexus at business cycle frequencies in the US economy; b) explore the changing pattern of the distributive cycle in the US. In order to do so, it carries out the estimation of several structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models for two subperiods: the post-war period (1948–1984) and the Great Moderation (1985–2019). We find that: i) wage shocks have positive effects on labour productivity at business cycle frequencies in both subperiods; ii) the US economy exhibits profit-led activity, although this appears to be driven more by technology than by distributive shocks; iii) during the Great Moderation, labour productivity has become acyclical, and real wages are no longer responsive to employment; the disappearance of the procyclical pattern of labour productivity can then be explained by a lessened incentive to invest in labour-saving innovations by firms due to missing wage growth in the upturn of the business cycle.

There are many situations in which one partner must make decisions on behalf of the couple. In such cases, incomplete knowledge about the partner’s likes and desires might lead to suboptimal decisions. This paper investigates whether individuals hold accurate beliefs about their partners’ tastes. In particular, we look at gender differences in knowledge about one’s partner’s preferences in the context of joint recreation. We conduct a Discrete Choice Experiment on a sample of couples from northern Spain to elicit the individual’s own and their prediction of their partner’s preferences for travel characteristics. Using Latent Class Modelling (LCM) to allow for preference heterogeneity, we find that, in general terms, both partners hold pretty accurate beliefs about the other’s likes and dislikes when selecting a travel package. Nonetheless, males are found to know their female partner’s preferences slightly better.

Job mismatch such as underemployment is a major characteristic of African labor markets. However, in some countries, the effect of skills’ (under)utilization on earning and job satisfaction is at this point not clear. This study aims to analyze the education-job mismatch effects on earnings and job satisfaction in Cameroon, by using data on wage employment provided by the National Institute of Statistics. To achieve it, the augmented Mincer’s model inspired by Verdugo & Verdugo’s approach is estimated by using the ordinary least squares with robust standard errors and the quantile regression technique. The estimator employs a control function approach to simultaneously account for endogeneity and double selection biases. Furthermore, the Probit with double sample selection is estimated to gauge the educational mismatch effect on job satisfaction. Results show that overeducation is associated with wage deprivation while undereducation generates a wage premium. These effects both differ for formal and informal workers and vary along the wage distribution. Compared to well-matched workers, overeducated and underemployed workers are less satisfied whereas undereducated workers are more satisfied with their job. However, the pattern of variation in terms of job satisfaction differs for formal and informal workers.

Although the level of extreme poverty has declined in recent decades, income inequality in many countries is at historic levels, thus representing a concern. Theoretically, tourism can play a crucial role in the fight against poverty and economic inequalities, but the limited existing literature has failed to reach a general consensus about this topic. By focusing on Italy, this paper investigates the extent of the role played by tourism in pursuing a reduction in income inequalities, while also observing effects on economic growth. In fact inequalities have also been increasing in Italy, but little is known about the role that tourism has played in this process. The main findings reveal that tourism is able to reverse the actual trend of increase in dispersion in terms of per capita income which characterized the Italian provinces from 2010 to 2019. This industry can therefore be effectively used as a tool to promote both the catching up of poorer provinces with richer ones, thus narrowing the income gap, and the reduction of overall income disparities among different provinces, leading to a more uniform distribution of wealth.

The EU ETS represents the cornerstone of the EU climate policy framework. While most of the studies focus on the determinants of carbon price, this work will provide further insights into the influence of European Emission Allowance (EUA) prices on carbon dioxide trends and variables of the economic-financial-climate-environmental system considering a large set of time series. Results highlighted how CO₂ appears to be more influenced by commodity prices, climate variables, and past industrial performances. Furthermore, a shock in carbon prices could potentially exert significant turbulence on the carbon dioxide series, fading in intensity as time goes by. Overall, there appears to be a net positive effect on the influence of carbon prices on the system. However, robustness checks identified how the impact of carbon price on CO₂ and other variables of the model is still weak. This work sheds light on the EU ETS's influence on a set of multidimensional variables. Still, overlapping national policies appear to interfere with the EU ETS effectiveness in the EU.

The goal of this study is to analyse the vertical and horizontal mismatches of graduates in the Spanish labour market focusing on the effect that a master’s degree has in each of these two mismatches. The analysis is based on the data from the Survey on the Labour Insertion of University Graduates carried out by the Spanish Statistical Office in 2019. The main conclusions stress the importance of vertical and horizontal mismatches in the Spanish labour market. The results of the quantitative analysis based on the binary and ordered logit indicate that the master’s degree can reduce the vertical mismatch. Moreover, a wider offer of master’s degrees in some fields such as health could reduce the horizontal mismatch. Eventually, some policy measures to reduce the two mismatches are proposed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse both horizontal and vertical job-education mismatches among Spanish graduates, including those with a Master's degree. Thus, this study is pioneering in assessing the impact of Master's degrees in reducing educational mismatches. In addition, it shows how the likelihood of these mismatches changes with increasing work experience.

This paper analyzes the design of monetary and fiscal policies in a currency union by focusing on the capacity to react to symmetric and asymmetric financial shocks. The model is constructed in order to mimic the institutional design adopted for the policy making in the EMU. The paper shows how a currency union set-up like the one adopted by the EMU can easily cope with symmetric financial shocks. However, it shows how in the face of asymmetric shocks more space for fiscal interventions is crucial, especially in more peripheral member countries.

The study analyzes the Bohn (2007) sustainability test, allowing for a quadratic fiscal reaction function to public debt levels over the period 2000–2019 for 40 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), employing a dynamic panel threshold model and other alternative estimation methods to investigate the reaction of fiscal policy and Dumitrescu–Hurlin Granger causality to identify potential causality linkages between government spending and revenue. Fiscal policy is found to follow a debt-stabilizing rule at a low to moderate level; however, fiscal responsiveness weakens when public debt to GDP ratio exceeds 55%, indicating that the use of primary surplus as an instrument to contain debt is insufficient when debt goes above the threshold, therefore jeopardizing the efficacy of fiscal retrenchments as an instrument to achieve sustainable debt reduction in SSA countries. The Dumitrescu–Hurlin result suggests a unidirectional flow from expenditure to revenue in SSA countries, implying that an increase in government spending has a substantial impact on widening fiscal imbalances and escalating debt levels within the SSA countries. Hence, governments in SSA countries should guarantee that public debt management strategies are in line with the public debt threshold to enhance fiscal sustainability. Considering these findings, this study highlights the importance of prudent fiscal management incorporating measures such as structural reforms, targeted investments, and prudent debt management strategies in SSA countries.

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model to evaluate the re-centralization of public procurement in an emergency under different collective choice mechanisms. We show that the equilibrium degree of centralization is the result of the interplay of three forces: (i) an “efficiency gain” effect, that works in favour of full centralization, since central government is likely to be more efficient than regional governments in purchasing goods on the market, and (ii) “dangerous liaisons” across levels of government, that work against centralization, because of (ii.a) the central government’s willingness to scapegoat failures on regional governments (“blame effect”), and (ii.b) the regional governments’ shame in delegating to the centre (“shame effect”). We have used the model to interpret the change in the governance of public procurement in Italy during the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, Italy, likewise many other countries around the world, responded to COVID-19 emergency with a mixed bag of centralized and decentralized measures that most likely reflected the particular ways in which politicians assumed blame and shame would work at different stages of the pandemic rather than their considerations on efficiency.