Hungary has room to streamline public spending without hurting growth
Cutting some state operating and economic spending to the average of its regional peers could save Hungary more than four percent of GDP. Hungary’s new
Measuring capital account openness: Why intensity matters
Recent debates have highlighted the trade-offs between maintaining openness to foreign capital and safeguarding macroeconomic and financial stability, but measuring the level of capital account
The devil is in the tail: How firms’ beliefs about rare macroeconomic disasters shape investment
Little is known about how firms think about rare macroeconomic disasters and how these beliefs shape their decisions. This column uses survey evidence from a
Mapping the household-level transmission of monetary policy
The monetary tightening that followed the post-pandemic inflation episode has revived long-standing debates about how monetary policy affects households. This column uses a survey of
Macroeconomic policies for AI
While some observers argue that artificial intelligence may lead to large productivity gains, there are also concerns that it may lead to technological unemployment and
Identifying monetary policy shocks in newspapers using GPT
Identifying the shock component of monetary policy is a precondition for measuring its causal effects. This column proposes a novel approach: using large language models,
The macroeconomic consequences of undermining central bank independence: Evidence from governor transitions
In recent years, several high-profile episodes have renewed concerns about central bank independence in practice. This column constructs a new cross-country dataset of central bank
Central bank digital currency, the future of money, and politics
A number of concerns have been raised regarding retail central bank digital currency. These range from competition and innovation, privacy issues, and monetary sovereignty. This
A wartime labour market: The case of Ukraine
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has generated one of the largest labour supply and reallocation shocks in recent history. This column reveals,
Fiscal drag in Europe: How inflation is quietly affecting public revenue
The 2022 inflationary spike in Europe has brought renewed interest in fiscal drag. Using harmonised microdata for 21 European countries, this column documents that the
