Search results for " countries"
showing 10 items of 449 documents
Backing out of private pension provision - Lessons from Germany
2012
Financing pensions in the EU is a challenge. Many EU countries introduced private pension schemes to compensate declining public pension levels due to reforms made necessary by demographic change. In 2001, Germany introduced the Riester pension. Ten years after introduction the prevalence rate of this voluntary private pension scheme approximates 37 %. However, numerous criticisms raise doubts that the market for Riester products is transparent. Using the 2010 German SAVE survey, this article investigates terminated and dormant Riester contracts on a household level for the first time. Respectively 14.5 and 12.5 % of households who own or have owned a Riester contract terminated or set dorm…
The factor content of regional bilateral trade: The role of technology and demand
2011
Abstract The Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model in its strict form has been strongly rejected by the data. Relaxing some assumptions of the standard HOV model is key to find improvements in its performance. We apply the Davis and Weinstein (2001) methodology to analyse the validity of the HOV model using regions rather than countries. Surprisingly, our results using data for 17 Spanish regions are similar to theirs with international data for OECD countries. Accounting for technological differences improves the predictive capacity of the factor proportions model and including trade costs and geography reduces significantly the missing trade problem. However, relaxing the assumption of factor…
Technology spillover effects within Spanish communities
2017
ABSTRACTThe article uses panel data for the period 1990–2010 to estimate technology spillover effects on 17 Spanish communities. Accounting for nonstationarity and cointegration, we use the dynamic OLS estimator to estimate the impact of domestic and non-domestic R&D capital stock on labour productivity of Spanish communities, taking into account trade-, migration- and foreign direct investment (FDI)-related technology diffusion channels. We find significant trade-related spillover effects within Spanish communities and from EU countries. On average, an increase in the non-domestic R&D stock of 1% increases their labour productivity between 0.02% and 0.12% if related to bilateral trade patt…
Is the ‘euro effect’ on trade so small after all? New evidence using gravity equations with panel cointegration techniques
2014
In this paper we present new evidence on the aggregate effect of the euro on trade using data for 26 OECD countries for the period 1967–2008. We strive to fill the gaps present in the previous literature through a second-generation panel cointegration tests and estimators that account for both cross-section dependence in the data and discontinuities in the deterministic and the cointegrating vector in the time dimension. This approach allows us to put the adoption of the euro by EMU members in historical perspective. We argue that the creation of the EMU is best interpreted as a progression of policy changes. Once we control for all of them the euro effect decreases considerably but is stil…
The macroeconomic effects of public investment: Evidence from advanced economies
2015
This paper provides new evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in advanced economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify the causal effect of government investment in a sample of 17 OECD economies since 1985 and model simulations, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output, both in the short term and in the long term, crowds in private investment, and reduces unemployment. Several factors shape the macroeconomic effects of public investment. When there is economic slack and monetary accommodation, demand effects are stronger, and the public-debt-to-GDP ratio may actually decline. Public investment is also more effective in boosting ou…
Macroeconomic performance and convergence in OECD countries
1996
Abstract This paper investigates the robustness of the correlation between growth and a set of variables which comprises accumulation rates in human and physical capital and medium term macroeconomic indicators in OECD countries. We include these variables as additional regressors in the standard growth equation that comes from the human capital-augmented Solow model. Our results show that variables related to medium term macroeconomic performance affect both growth and convergence. In some periods these variables even outperform the explanatory power of the conventional growth variables such as the accumulation rates. Our results also suggest that it is difficult to analyse the contributio…
IMF lending arrangements in emerging and developing countries – participation and prediction
2016
AbstractThe literature on determinants of International Monetary Fund (IMF) interventions in emerging and developing countries shows that the IMF’s decisions are determined by political and economic causes. This article empirically investigates economic factors, showing that a country’s probability to sign an IMF arrangement can be predicted by looking at a core group of macroeconomic variables. Using discriminant analysis we develop a score function that allows us to predict a country’s future participation in IMF programmes. The study covers 153 emerging and developing countries, over more than 30 years (1980–2011) and 654 agreements, for both non-concessional and concessional loans. The …
The Effects of Social Spending on Economic Activity: Empirical Evidence from a Panel of OECD countries
2012
The aim of this paper is to assess the short term effects of social spending on economic activity. Using a panel of OECD countries from 1980 to 2005, the results show that social spending has expansionary effects on GDP. In particular, we find that an increase of 1% of social spending increases GDP by about 0.1 percentage point, which, given the share of social spending to GDP, corresponds to a multiplier of about 0.6. The effect is similar to the one of total government spending, and it is larger in periods of severe downturns. Among spending subcategories, social spending in Health and Unemployment benefits have the greatest effects. Social spending also positively affects private consump…
Stabilization effects of social spending: Empirical evidence from a panel of OECD countries
2010
Abstract The aim of this paper is to assess the ability of social spending to smooth output shocks and to provide stabilization. The results show that overall social spending is able to smooth about 15 percent of a shock to GDP. Among its sub-categories, social spending devoted to Old Age, Health and Unemployment are those that contribute more to provide smoothing. Moreover, the stabilization effects of social spending are significantly larger in those countries where the size of social spending is higher, and in countries in which social spending is less volatile. The empirical results are economically and statistically significant, and robust.
Global imbalances and the intertemporal external budget constraint: A multicointegration approach
2013
Abstract This paper analyzes the external solvency of a group of 23 OECD countries for the period 1970–2012. The empirical strategy adopted underlines the increasing importance of the financial channel for the external adjustment as proposed in Gourinchas and Rey (2007) . We unify the traditional approaches to testing for external sustainability considering the stock-flow system created by the variables representing the external relationships of an open economy. External sustainability is tested using several types of cointegration and multicointegration tests. The results obtained point to weak sustainability in the flows analysis, whereas some degree of strong sustainability is found for …