Source Themes

Adopting the Euro: A Synthetic Control Approach

We investigate whether joining the European Monetary Union and losing the ability to set monetary policy affected the economic growth of Eurozone countries. We use the synthetic control approach to create a counterfactual scenario for how each …

The Political Costs of Austerity

Using a novel regional database covering over 200 elections in several European countries, this paper provides new empirical evidence on the political consequences of fiscal consolidations. To identify exogenous reductions in regional public …

Monetary Policy and the Wage Inflation-Unemployment Tradeoff

Using newly assembled data for 18 advanced economies between 1870 and 2019, I study how monetary policy affects wage inflation and unemployment and document two key findings regarding their tradeoff. First, the wage Phillips curve displays a …

The Effects of Government Spending in the Eurozone

Using a newly assembled rich dataset at the regional level, this paper provides novel empirical evidence on the fiscal transmission mechanism in the Eurozone. Our baseline estimates reveal a government spending relative output multiplier around 2, an …

The Credit Channel of Public Procurement

Public procurement accounts for one third of government spending. In this paper, I document a new mechanism through which government procurement promotes firm growth: firms use procurement contracts to increase the amount of cash-flow based lending. …

Gains from Commitment: The Case for Pegging the Exchange Rate

Does the exchange rate regime matter for inflation and economic activity? This paper argues that it does and that there are substantial benefits to a fixed exchange rate regime. At the heart of these benefits lies an increase in commitment for the …

Who should you vote for? Empirical evidence from Portuguese local governments

The economic literature considers voters quasi-rational agents that care about maximizing their individual welfare when deciding on who to vote for. Voters believe that, once a politician is elected, his or her characteristics will affect policy …