The events of March 2023 in the US and Switzerland showed, once again, that banking systems remain fragile. The latest Geneva Report on the World Economy assesses whether reforms to date suffice to deal with a changing environment and ongoing structural changes, and what additional reforms may be necessary. While the specific causes of bank […]
Developed countries are ageing fast. Although longer and healthier lives imply huge welfare gains for individuals, the effects on economic growth have been elusive. This column uses a structural model to estimate the contributions of demographic change to the historical and projected future economic growth in the four largest European economies. The model projects that […]
Many of today’s global problems, such as sustainability, technology, skills, and diversity can only be solved by organisations. This column argues that more work is needed to understand strategic management by firms, how firms behave, and how they respond to economic incentives. Future research should study strategic decisions by firms as well as their internal […]
Though social scientists have long questioned how religion affects economic growth, a lack of accessible data hindered their efforts. Recently, advances in computing, novel econometric techniques, and the availability of new data have enabled researchers to test how religion has influenced growth in rich and poor countries, both historically and in the present. This column […]
Switching the delivery of one-to-one services from in-person to online offers potential cost savings and increased convenience, but what are the impacts on providers and consumers? This column studies the effects of online delivery of primary care doctor consultations in Sweden. The authors find that online consultations are delivered sooner, are shorter, and yield similar […]
It is generally believed that standard macroeconomic models of foreign exchange rates do not fit the data well. However, this column argues that a model that includes real interest rates, expected inflation, the US trade balance, and measures of global risk and liquidity demand fits the data for the US dollar against other G10 currencies […]
If constrained by EU rules, fiscal policymakers will cut or postpone public investment. This seemingly obvious point came up regularly in the policy debate around the latest reform of the EU fiscal framework. This column argues that the reality is more complex. Governments lamenting a stifling effect of fiscal rules on public investment are often […]
The urban wage premium – the positive wage differential between more and less dense geographic areas – is rarely estimated separately for men and women. This column shows that, in Brazil, agglomeration economies benefit men and women differently in dense areas: the urban wage premiums for men and women change across the wage distribution and […]
Many governments have limited welfare benefits for refugee immigrants to encourage workforce participation. This column examines the effects of a large reduction in the cash transfers that non-employed refugee immigrants Denmark were eligible for. While triggering notable initial employment responses, the reform failed to sustain employment and self-sufficiency, particularly in areas where low-skilled work is […]
Following the release of the Panama Papers and the Pardise Papers, there has been renewed research into profit shifting by multinational firms. This column utilises a novel dataset to show that well-managed subsidiaries, independently of their headquarters, allow a company to be more responsive to tax changes, shifting more profits from high-tax to low-tax jurisdictions. […]
