In response to the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments provided financial assistance to households. Using representative consumer surveys conducted during the pandemic in 2020, we examine the effects of this fiscal policy instrument on households in two emerging economies, Vietnam and Thailand. Our paper contributes to the literature by studying consumer sentiment and durable spending responses to government financial support and the underlying transmission channels for these responses. We find that government support improves consumer sentiment and increases the likelihood of durable spending.

A recent literature has explored the role of semi-autonomous demand growth. This paper builds on the literature by incorporating a Lernerian government semi-autonomous demand function and an endogenous supply-side. Our main purpose is threefold. First, we wish to contribute to the case for crowding-in effects, especially in the long-run. Second, we confirm the Keynesian/Kaleckian pedigree of the capital stock adjustment principle. Third, we contrast core post-Keynesian ideas on demand-led supply-side endogeneity with the alternative neo-Marxian neo-Harrodian proposition of an exogenously-given natural growth rate, and find the latter lacking.

We study a two-class model of growth and the distribution of income and wealth at the intersection of contemporary work in classical political economy and the post-Keynesian tradition. The key insight is that aggregate demand is an externality for individual firms: this generates a strategic complementarity in production that results in equilibrium underutilization of the economy’s productive capacity and hysteresis in real GDP per-capita in balanced growth. This equilibrium inefficiency reverberates into both the functional distribution of income and the distribution of wealth: both the wage share and the workers’ wealth share would be higher at full capacity. Consequently, fiscal allocation policy that achieves productive efficiency also attains a higher labor share and a more equitable distribution of wealth.

The empirical literature on the impact of corporate taxes on economic growth reaches ambiguous conclusions: corporate tax cuts increase, reduce, or do not significantly affect growth. We apply meta-regression methods to a novel dataset with 441 estimates from 42 primary studies. There is evidence for publication selectivity in favour of reporting growth-enhancing effects of corporate tax cuts. Correcting for this bias, we cannot reject the hypothesis of a zero effect of corporate taxes on growth. Several factors influence reported estimates, including researcher choices concerning the measurement of growth and corporate taxes, and controlling for other budgetary components.

Foreseeable income reductions around retirement should not affect aggregate consumption. However, given higher leisure endowments after retirement, theory also predicts lower consumption of leisure substitutes. To avoid misinterpreting this predicted drop as a puzzle, our novel approach focuses on housing consumption (complementary to leisure in utility) and controls for leisure changes.

The empirical literature on the impact of corporate taxes on economic growth reaches ambiguous conclusions: corporate tax cuts increase, reduce, or do not significantly affect growth. We apply meta-regression methods to a novel dataset with 441 estimates from 42 primary studies. There is evidence for publication selectivity in favour of reporting growth-enhancing effects of corporate tax cuts. Correcting for this bias, we cannot reject the hypothesis of a zero effect of corporate taxes on growth. Several factors influence reported estimates, including researcher choices concerning the measurement of growth and corporate taxes, and controlling for other budgetary components.

The 'Goodwin pattern' – an anti-clockwise rotation in real activity x wage share space recurring at intervals that correspond roughly to the duration of business cycles – is an enduring feature of high-frequency dynamics in capitalist economies. It is well known that the centre or focus of this rotation shifts over time.

Using an ecological macrofinancial model, we explore the potential impact of the `green supporting factor' (GSF) and the `dirty penalising factor' (DPF) on climate-related financial risks. We identify the transmission channels by which these green differentiated capital requirements (GDCRs) can affect credit provision and loan spreads, and we analyse these channels within a dynamic framework in which climate and macrofinancial feedback effects play a key role.

The ECB’s strategy of inflation targeting as currently practiced requires only minor adjustments to allow the ECB to best provide price stability and support the EU’s general economic policies. The key to inflation targeting is a distinct and symmetric inflation target that serves as a benchmark for private-sector expectations and a central bank that is held accountable and transparently justifies its policy actions

Working-time reductions, mainly through short-time work (STW), were the major factor in safeguarding employment in the Coronavirus Crisis. STW was more rapidly extended, more generous, and for the first time a stronger focus was put on securing household income. Low-wage earners are affected more frequently by STW than in the past and suffered relatively greater earnings losses compared to others.

The euro area crisis has revealed a lack of cross-country risk sharing. Frequently used estimation methods to determine the empirical contribution of the different risk sharing mechanisms have important shortcomings. The ongoing debate about reforming the euro area would benefit from complementary empirical approaches.

This paper studies the interaction between epidemiological dynamics and the dynamics of economic activity in a demand-driven model in the structuralist/post-Keynesian tradition.

Germany’s sustained current-account surplus is not only bad for others in Europe and beyond—it is bad for almost all Germans too.

Upholding the EU fiscal rules at the elevated public debt level due to the Corona crisis would trigger a phase of long-standing austerity in the euro area. In this study, major proposals for reforms are reviewed, with a critical focus on the expenditure rule, which is central in many think-tanks’ and academic researchers’ advice.

According to our survey among the German labour force, school closures during the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis in the spring of 2020 have led to a relatively small impact on parents’ labour supply of only 0.4 percent of economy-wide working hours in April 2020 and June 2020. School closures are hence more of a long-term economic and social problem than a short-term labour supply shock.

Study finds public capital stocks throughout the EU to increase markedly due to RRF. In some hard-hit European countries, the RRF would offset a significant share of GDP lost during the pandemic. As gains in GDP much stronger in (poorer) southern and eastern European countries, RRF to potentially reduce economic divergence. All countries to experience lower public debt ratios over the next years.

I estimate fiscal reaction functions to analyze the cyclical behavior of discretionary measures in the euro area and the potential impact of changes in the fiscal framework. The core is to analyze whether fiscal rules have an asymmetric impact on discretionary measures over the cycle. First, results confirm the general perception that overall discretionary fiscal policy in the EMU is marginally procyclical. Procyclicality is, however, characterized by strong fiscal tightening in contractions while reactions in upturns are neutral. Second, fiscal rules marginally increase countercyclical policy responses in upturns, but strongly reinforce destabilizing procyclical polices in downturns. Interestingly, expenditure rules perform comparably better with regard to the stabilization objective than budget or debt rules.