Economics & Politics最新文献

In 2015, Italy adopted a new labor market policy known as the Jobs Act (JA), aimed at promoting employment and reducing the costs associated with firing employees. We investigate how the impact of the JA provisions on employment. We estimate the effect of the relief on social security contributions and and assess the impact of the new firing rules on employment through a two-step procedure: propensity score matching and difference-in-differences estimation. The results of our model do not indicate a significant impact of these measures, either on employment levels or on changes among flexible workers.

I study how strategic communication among voters shapes both political outcomes and parties' advertising strategies in a model of informative campaign advertising. I show that echo chambers arise endogenously as a product of strategic communication. Surprisingly, a small ideological distance between voters is not sufficient to guarantee that a chamber is created, biases' direction plays a crucial role.

This study examines whether the disclosure of the Key Audit Matters (KAMs) has a peer effect within an industry. Using a sample of China-listed firms from 2017 to 2022, we find a significant industry-specific peer effect in the KAM disclosure behavior, which remains consistent across various robustness tests. The peer effect of the KAM disclosure is more substantial when corporate market competition is more fierce. Specifically, the cut-throat competition leads to higher auditing risk for auditors who have to alleviate the risk by imitating the KAM disclosure behavior of their peers within the same industry, thereby leading to a peer effect in KAM disclosure. Heterogeneity analysis exhibits that the extent of peer effect in the KAM disclosure varies among corporate ownership structure, auditor expertise, and media coverage. This study contributes to the literature on the KAM disclosure and offers important policy implications for auditing standard construction and regulation on KAM disclosure.

An important body of literature explores the political economy reasons underlying delays in macroeconomic stabilization. This paper develops a framework to analyze the conflict between two risk-averse groups of economic actors, one that has an endowment of internationally tradable goods and another that is endowed with nontradable goods: both endowments require imported inputs to consume. The focus is on the exchange rate policy in a developing country setup, where the government employs seigniorage revenue to finance prestabilization spending, and faces fiscal and balance of payments problems that necessitate stabilization with a step devaluation. Trade misinvoicing, the presence of exchange rate uncertainty and its interaction with import costs, the role of forward-looking expectations, and the possibility of foreign/IMF aid influence the likelihood, timing, and terms of a consensus on stabilization in interesting ways. Crucially, given instrument uncertainty, delays may occur even if both sets of agents have perfect foresight and nontradable endowment-holders realize that their relative position deteriorates over time.

Effective enforcement is an essential element of any fiscal rule. The EU's Stability and Growth Pact has been struggling with this truism since inception. We show that its effectiveness goes beyond the threat of fines. The notion that deficit-prone member states adopt a more virtuous fiscal behaviour to avert sanctions is overshadowed by the realization that in the event of a major shock virtuous countries will come to their rescue as the survival of the entire system is at stake. Unless the underlying issues are addressed, the effectiveness of any EU fiscal rule remains limited.

In this paper, we investigate the socio-economic factors affecting the electoral outcomes of the populist parties in Poland. According to estimation results, the re-election of Law and Justice in 2019 can be explained by changes in economic conditions. Slow dynamics of municipality revenues from the personal income tax, depopulation, and social transfers are crucial drivers of its success. Contrary to Western Europe, the effects of immigration and inequality on the outcomes of populist parties in Poland are not statistically significant. Populist parties were successful in gaining support in areas, which traditionally did not vote for them.

Using an international sample of listed companies from 36 countries, we investigate whether firms' engagement in tax-aggressive behavior drives them to increase their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities. Consistent with the reputation risk mitigation theory, our results show that U.S. and Canadian firms ramp up their ESG activities 4 years after engaging in tax-aggressive practices, aligning with the typical duration for the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) investigations. In contrast, firms in other countries act sooner, within 2–3 years. Further analysis shows that firms in countries with stringent law enforcement, and those adopting International Financial Reporting Standards, are less likely to enhance CSR/ESG activities following aggressive tax policies. These findings highlight the significant influence of regulatory and disclosure environments in shaping corporate behavior in tax policies.