Comparative Economic Studies最新文献

Using firm-level data from the Refinitiv Datastream Worldscope database for more than 17,253 non-financial firms in 45 advanced and emerging economies, this paper examines how fiscal stimulus interacted with sectoral business cycle sensitivity has affected firms' sales and capital expenditures during the global financial crisis. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that reductions in structural fiscal balances are associated with higher firms' sales and capital expenditures (as percentage of their total assets) in 2009. This result is obtained notably for the manufacturing and construction industries and for different regions depending on the firm performance variable. Our findings have key implications for the design of fiscal response to shocks at industry and firm levels, including during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41294-021-00160-5.

Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. What has happened to mortality in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union? What explains the wide swings of mortality over time? This paper documents changes in mortality in Russia since 1989, and reviews the research in the economics and public health literature on the causes of the changes. The focus is on the post-2000 period, and the possible role played in recent declining mortality rates by Russia's alcohol and tobacco control policies. The two themes that emerge are (1) that government policies are critical for understanding both rising and falling male mortality over this period, and (2) that the underlying causes of the mortality crisis and its reversal are difficult to clearly identify empirically and remain, at best, partially understood, leaving much scope for future research on this issue.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41294-021-00169-w.

In 2021, it is thirty years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This paper examines the evolution of Central Asia's five national economies since 1991 and their economic prospects. The 1990s were dominated by nation-building and the transition from central planning. By 2000, the transition from central planning was essentially complete and the varieties of market-based economies have changed little in the 21st century. Political systems, established in the 1990s around a general pattern of strong presidencies, also changed little, apart from in Kyrgyzstan. Between 1999 and 2014, national economic fortunes were largely shaped by the resource boom. Since the end of the boom, to re-orient Central Asia from dependence on primary product exports and remittances to more diversified outward-oriented economies, domestic change will be necessary. This paper assesses the pressures for economic reform and the forces resistant to change. The economic context includes an improved infrastructure for overland trade across Eurasia as well as an uncertain global trading system and the consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic. The political context includes autocratic non-democracies with an elite that may be content with the unreformed economy, and generational change in leadership. Whereas the initial presidents had spent their entire lives in the planned economy, the current presidents have spent most of their adult lives in market-based economies, mirroring similar changes in the wider population, and may be less resistant to market-based reform and integration into the global economy.

In this contribution, I use the fiscal theory of the price level as a backdrop for a discussion on the risks that expansionary fiscal policies may pose on debt sustainability. I recall that a regime of fiscal dominance does not lead to macroeconomic instability. I also review a few empirical papers on fiscal sustainability and I conclude, also based upon own estimates, that it is not a major concern, at least in the short to mid-run. Finally, I argue that Europeans should continue on the fiscal impetus they contributed to in 2020 by fostering coordination and transparency on EU fiscal policies. To achieve this objective, I revisit the idea of an enhanced dialogue on fiscal matters at the European Parliament and propose to establish a Fiscal Dialogue with the EU Member States.