Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104947
Arnaud Deseau , Adam Levai , Michèle Schmiegelow
This paper evaluates the importance of access to justice (ATJ) for economic growth. To do so, we create a new database on the number of judges per capita by collecting data from various public institutions and academic publications. We use these data as a country-level indicator to capture the structural evolution of ATJ from 1970 to 2019 for a wide range of developed and developing countries. Using an instrumental variable approach in a dynamic panel setting to deal with endogeneity, we show that ATJ has a sizable positive effect on economic growth. The substantial aggregate effect of ATJ on growth is independent of countries’ legal origin, customary law, rule of law or level of democracy. However, we find evidence that the economic returns from ATJ are higher in poorer countries. In terms of mechanisms, our results suggest that ATJ promotes growth via higher government accountability and improved institutional quality.
{"title":"Access to justice and economic development: Evidence from an international panel dataset","authors":"Arnaud Deseau , Adam Levai , Michèle Schmiegelow","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104947","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104947","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper evaluates the importance of access to justice (ATJ) for economic growth. To do so, we create a new database on the number of judges per capita by collecting data from various public institutions and academic publications. We use these data as a country-level indicator to capture the structural evolution of ATJ from 1970 to 2019 for a wide range of developed and developing countries. Using an instrumental variable approach in a dynamic panel setting to deal with endogeneity, we show that ATJ has a sizable positive effect on economic growth. The substantial aggregate effect of ATJ on growth is independent of countries’ legal origin, customary law, rule of law or level of democracy. However, we find evidence that the economic returns from ATJ are higher in poorer countries. In terms of mechanisms, our results suggest that ATJ promotes growth via higher government accountability and improved institutional quality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104947"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104914
Pierre-Richard Agénor , Luiz A. Pereira da Silva
A two-region endogenous growth model of the world economy with local and global public goods is used to study strategic interactions between national policymakers. Distortionary taxes are used to finance infrastructure investment at home and generate resources for vaccine production by a global fund. While the global public good is nonexcludable, it is partially rival. Optimal tax rates under cooperation and noncooperation are solved for analytically, under both financial autarky and openness, and numerical experiments are performed to evaluate the welfare gain from cooperation. Whether optimal levies are higher or lower under cooperation, and the magnitude of welfare gains, depend on the degree of integration of capital markets, the existence of a direct trade-off between expenditure components, and the nature of the tax base. When the health levy takes the form of a capital or wealth tax, cooperation is welfare-improving under both autarky and financial openness, but enforcement and collection costs may narrow the scope of taxation under all policy regimes.
{"title":"Global public goods, fiscal policy coordination, and welfare in the world economy","authors":"Pierre-Richard Agénor , Luiz A. Pereira da Silva","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104914","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104914","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A two-region endogenous growth model of the world economy with local and global public goods is used to study strategic interactions between national policymakers. Distortionary taxes are used to finance infrastructure investment at home and generate resources for vaccine production by a global fund. While the global public good is nonexcludable, it is partially rival. Optimal tax rates under cooperation and noncooperation are solved for analytically, under both financial autarky and openness, and numerical experiments are performed to evaluate the welfare gain from cooperation. Whether optimal levies are higher or lower under cooperation, and the magnitude of welfare gains, depend on the degree of integration of capital markets, the existence of a direct trade-off between expenditure components, and the nature of the tax base. When the health levy takes the form of a capital or wealth tax, cooperation is welfare-improving under both autarky and financial openness, but enforcement and collection costs may narrow the scope of taxation under all policy regimes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104914"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104926
Astrid Krenz , Holger Strulik
We develop a macroeconomic theory of the division of household tasks between servants and own work and how it is affected by automation in households and firms. We calibrate the model for the U.S. and apply it to explain the historical development of household time use and the distribution of household tasks from 1900 to 2020. The economy is populated by high-skilled and low-skilled households and household tasks are performed by own work, machines, or servants. For the period 1900–1960, innovations in household automation motivate the decline of the servant economy and the creation of new household tasks motivates an almost constant division of household time between wage work and domestic work. For the period 1960–2020, innovations in firm automation and the implied increase of the skill premium explain the return of the servant economy. We use counterfactual historical experiments to assess the role of automation, the creation of new household tasks, and the gig economy for the division of household time and tasks. We provide supporting evidence for the relation between automation and inequality, and for inequality as a driver of the return of the servant economy in a regional panel of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas for the period 2005–2020.
{"title":"Automation and the fall and rise of the servant economy","authors":"Astrid Krenz , Holger Strulik","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104926","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104926","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We develop a macroeconomic theory of the division of household tasks between servants and own work and how it is affected by automation in households and firms. We calibrate the model for the U.S. and apply it to explain the historical development of household time use and the distribution of household tasks from 1900 to 2020. The economy is populated by high-skilled and low-skilled households and household tasks are performed by own work, machines, or servants. For the period 1900–1960, innovations in household automation motivate the decline of the servant economy and the creation of new household tasks motivates an almost constant division of household time between wage work and domestic work. For the period 1960–2020, innovations in firm automation and the implied increase of the skill premium explain the return of the servant economy. We use counterfactual historical experiments to assess the role of automation, the creation of new household tasks, and the gig economy for the division of household time and tasks. We provide supporting evidence for the relation between automation and inequality, and for inequality as a driver of the return of the servant economy in a regional panel of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas for the period 2005–2020.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104926"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Monetary policy is increasingly found to exert long-run effects on the aggregate economy. We investigate the long-term effects of monetary policy through the credit channel. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with financial intermediaries and endogenous innovation in which credit frictions constrain firms’ investment and R&D expenses. Following an adverse monetary shock, the tightening of credit conditions for the innovation sector generates sizeable long-term effects, turning the shock into a persistent stagnation. We quantify the contribution of this transmission channel to productivity and output hysteresis. We then characterize the monetary policy trade-offs between short- and long-term targets, showing that the control of inflation can entail a growth slowdown. The results are consistent with Bayesian VAR estimates of the responses of credit and innovation aggregates to monetary shocks.
{"title":"Persistent slumps: Innovation and the credit channel of monetary policy","authors":"Elton Beqiraj , Qingqing Cao , Raoul Minetti , Giulio Tarquini","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104946","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104946","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Monetary policy is increasingly found to exert long-run effects on the aggregate economy. We investigate the long-term effects of monetary policy through the credit channel. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with financial intermediaries and endogenous innovation in which credit frictions constrain firms’ investment and R&D expenses. Following an adverse monetary shock, the tightening of credit conditions for the innovation sector generates sizeable long-term effects, turning the shock into a persistent stagnation. We quantify the contribution of this transmission channel to productivity and output hysteresis. We then characterize the monetary policy trade-offs between short- and long-term targets, showing that the control of inflation can entail a growth slowdown. The results are consistent with Bayesian VAR estimates of the responses of credit and innovation aggregates to monetary shocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104946"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104948
Joep Lustenhouwer , Isabelle Salle
We conduct a laboratory experiment in a micro-founded macroeconomic model where participants receive public announcements about future government spending shocks, and are tasked with repeatedly forecasting output over a given horizon. By eliciting several-period-ahead predictions, we can investigate forecast revisions in relation to these announcements. We find that subjects learn the magnitude of the effect of the shocks on output, albeit not with perfect accuracy. We find micro-level evidence that they persistently underreact to the announcements in a way consistent with sticky information, but find little support for fully backward-looking expectations. We rationalize the experimental data with a Bayesian updating model, which provides a particularly good description of the behaviors in longer-horizon environments and among attentive, experienced, and effortful subjects.
{"title":"Learning to be rational in the presence of news: A lab investigation","authors":"Joep Lustenhouwer , Isabelle Salle","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104948","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104948","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We conduct a laboratory experiment in a micro-founded macroeconomic model where participants receive public announcements about future government spending shocks, and are tasked with repeatedly forecasting output over a given horizon. By eliciting several-period-ahead predictions, we can investigate forecast revisions in relation to these announcements. We find that subjects learn the magnitude of the effect of the shocks on output, albeit not with perfect accuracy. We find micro-level evidence that they persistently underreact to the announcements in a way consistent with sticky information, but find little support for fully backward-looking expectations. We rationalize the experimental data with a Bayesian updating model, which provides a particularly good description of the behaviors in longer-horizon environments and among attentive, experienced, and effortful subjects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104948"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143156998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.104952
Pei Gao , Aditi Kothari , Yu-Hsiang Lei
This paper demonstrates the gendered impact of inadequate school sanitation, highlighting its link to sexual violence against children. Using panel analysis and a triple-difference strategy with district-year data, we find that constructing sex-specific toilets in schools significantly reduces child rapes, while having no effect on other sexual crimes (e.g., adult rape). The reduction is more pronounced in co-educational and secondary schools. Conversely, unisex toilets are ineffective, because girls feel unsafe to use them and continue defecating openly. Additionally, the deterrent effect of school sanitation is stronger in areas with more gender-equal norms, emphasizing the need for broad, culture-based preventive measures.
{"title":"Safe spaces for children: School sanitation and sexual violence","authors":"Pei Gao , Aditi Kothari , Yu-Hsiang Lei","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.104952","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.104952","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper demonstrates the gendered impact of inadequate school sanitation, highlighting its link to sexual violence against children. Using panel analysis and a triple-difference strategy with district-year data, we find that constructing sex-specific toilets in schools significantly reduces child rapes, while having no effect on other sexual crimes (e.g., adult rape). The reduction is more pronounced in co-educational and secondary schools. Conversely, unisex toilets are ineffective, because girls feel unsafe to use them and continue defecating openly. Additionally, the deterrent effect of school sanitation is stronger in areas with more gender-equal norms, emphasizing the need for broad, culture-based preventive measures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104952"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104928
Nauro F. Campos , Vera Z. Eichenauer , Jan-Egbert Sturm
Since 1980, the unemployment rate in Europe has consistently exceeded that in the United States. A large body of economic literature has attempted to explain the causes of this phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to provide an introductory overview of the subject, including a review of existing explanations, the establishment of a set of stylised facts and the introduction of a selection of recent contributions to the ongoing debate.
{"title":"An introduction to the european unemployment problem: Past trajectory, present dilemmas and future policies","authors":"Nauro F. Campos , Vera Z. Eichenauer , Jan-Egbert Sturm","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104928","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104928","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Since 1980, the unemployment rate in Europe has consistently exceeded that in the United States. A large body of economic literature has attempted to explain the causes of this phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to provide an introductory overview of the subject, including a review of existing explanations, the establishment of a set of stylised facts and the introduction of a selection of recent contributions to the ongoing debate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104928"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104916
Norbert Metiu , Esteban Prieto
The cross-sectional average of the pairwise correlations between U.S. stock returns is considered as a measure of risk to aggregate wealth priced by the stock market. We show that this measure predicts future U.S. output growth at a horizon of one to four years. A stronger average correlation of stock returns foreshadows significantly lower future output growth, even when controlling for some other widely used financial predictors. An innovation to average correlation gives rise to macroeconomic dynamics that resemble negative news about future total factor productivity (TFP) in a vector autoregression. TFP news shocks thus appear to be a key source of aggregate risk priced into stocks.
{"title":"Time-varying stock return correlation, news shocks, and business cycles","authors":"Norbert Metiu , Esteban Prieto","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104916","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104916","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The cross-sectional average of the pairwise correlations between U.S. stock returns is considered as a measure of risk to aggregate wealth priced by the stock market. We show that this measure predicts future U.S. output growth at a horizon of one to four years. A stronger average correlation of stock returns foreshadows significantly lower future output growth, even when controlling for some other widely used financial predictors. An innovation to average correlation gives rise to macroeconomic dynamics that resemble negative news about future total factor productivity (TFP) in a vector autoregression. TFP news shocks thus appear to be a key source of aggregate risk priced into stocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104916"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104935
Andrea Lassmann , Federica Liberini , Antonio Russo , Ángel Cuevas , Rubén Cuevas
We study the effect of corporate taxes on multinational digital platforms and the global online advertising market. Using a novel dataset of advertising prices and user product preferences from Facebook, jointly with international trade data, we show that an increase in the platform’s corporate tax rate in several countries had a sizeable effect on advertising prices therein. Given the platform’s two-sided and multinational structure, we also document substantial spillovers in the effects of ad prices across countries. The results are consistent with our theoretical model, which shows that, due to consumers’ limited tolerance for ads, the platform reduces the supply of ads to advertisers located in countries where it faces a higher tax rate.
{"title":"Global spillovers of taxation in the online advertising market. Theory and evidence from facebook","authors":"Andrea Lassmann , Federica Liberini , Antonio Russo , Ángel Cuevas , Rubén Cuevas","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104935","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104935","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study the effect of corporate taxes on multinational digital platforms and the global online advertising market. Using a novel dataset of advertising prices and user product preferences from Facebook, jointly with international trade data, we show that an increase in the platform’s corporate tax rate in several countries had a sizeable effect on advertising prices therein. Given the platform’s two-sided and multinational structure, we also document substantial spillovers in the effects of ad prices across countries. The results are consistent with our theoretical model, which shows that, due to consumers’ limited tolerance for ads, the platform reduces the supply of ads to advertisers located in countries where it faces a higher tax rate.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104935"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104949
Sebastian Laumer , Matthew Schaffer
This study examines how global supply chain conditions influence the transmission of US monetary policy during the pre-pandemic period. We find that elevated supply chain pressures amplify the standard effects of monetary policy shocks on macroeconomic outcomes. For instance, peak effects on output and prices are 160 and 30 percent larger, respectively, when supply chains are stressed. This amplification arises from an intensification of the credit channel, as financial variables related to the cost of external finance become more sensitive to monetary policy under heightened supply chain pressures. For example, the peak response of the excess bond premium doubles in magnitude. Firm-level estimates further support this conclusion, with investment becoming three times more responsive to monetary policy shocks when supply chains are strained. When extending the sample beyond March 2020, the amplification effect becomes larger and occurs at longer lag lengths.
{"title":"Monetary policy transmission under supply chain pressure","authors":"Sebastian Laumer , Matthew Schaffer","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104949","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104949","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines how global supply chain conditions influence the transmission of US monetary policy during the pre-pandemic period. We find that elevated supply chain pressures amplify the standard effects of monetary policy shocks on macroeconomic outcomes. For instance, peak effects on output and prices are 160 and 30 percent larger, respectively, when supply chains are stressed. This amplification arises from an intensification of the credit channel, as financial variables related to the cost of external finance become more sensitive to monetary policy under heightened supply chain pressures. For example, the peak response of the excess bond premium doubles in magnitude. Firm-level estimates further support this conclusion, with investment becoming three times more responsive to monetary policy shocks when supply chains are strained. When extending the sample beyond March 2020, the amplification effect becomes larger and occurs at longer lag lengths.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"172 ","pages":"Article 104949"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}