|
on Microeconomic European Issues |
|
Issue of 2018‒09‒24
twenty-two papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Michal Brzezinski (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how different economic mechanisms affected low self-rated health (SRH) in Europe over the recent crisis period (2008−2011). We use balanced panel data for covering 26 European countries and 43 456 participants coming from the longitudinal 2011 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) database. Over-time increases in low SRH incidence are decomposed into the contributions of changes in the distribution of covariates and changes in returns to the covariates. Results show that low SRH incidence increased in Europe during the crisis by almost 2 percentage points (3.7 percentage points in case of the Baltic countries). Decomposition analysis shows that: 1) decreasing household incomes and changing income distribution had no impact on low SRH incidence, 2) rise of material deprivation accounts for 12% of the overall growth in low SRH rates (27% for the Baltic countries), 3) decreasing levels of full-time and part-time employment as well as transitions to unemployment, economic inactivity, disability, or retirement account jointly for about 21% of the rise in low SRH in Europe (73% for Baltic countries). |
| Keywords: | self-rated health, economic crisis, decomposition, Oaxaca-Blinder, unemployment, material deprivation |
| JEL: | D63 E32 I1 I14 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2018-16&r=eur |
| By: | Vlad-Andrei Porumb; Costin Ciora; Gunther Maier; Ion Anghel |
| Abstract: | In this paper we draw on a proprietary database to analyze if the price premium of green certification in the EU depends on the location of buildings. Specifically, we focus on Finland, France and Germany, countries with extensive information regarding green buildings transactions during the 2010 to 2015 period. Considering the increasing demand for certification, we expect that sale prices for green buildings are higher relative to non-green buildings. We first assess if green certification is associated with a price premium in the analyzed countries. Second, we assess the effect that the location of green buildings has on the price premium. Our findings suggest that (i) buildings with green certification have a 19 percent higher price relative to non-certificated buildings and (ii) in cities of under 500 000 people, the price premium increases with the distance from the city center. Our results are robust to a series of robustness checks. We contribute to the rising literature on green buildings as the only study to assess the price impact of green certification in European countries. |
| Keywords: | EU; Green Buildings; Location; Price Premium |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_208&r=eur |
| By: | Endrich, Marek; Michel, Stephan |
| Abstract: | Germany shows a more welcoming attitude towards refugees than most other European countries. At the same time, the influx of refugees has led to massive protests, demonstrations and attacks against refugees. We look at the economic effects of these demonstrations and attacks on one important industry, namely tourism. Combining a novel, district-level data set on tourism with data on xenophobic activities, we find that xenophobic demonstrations have negative effects on tourist arrivals. This effect is found for domestic and foreign tourists. |
| Keywords: | Xenophobic activities,refugees,tourism,district-level data |
| JEL: | F22 L83 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ilewps:16&r=eur |
| By: | Lergetporer, Philipp (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Werner, Katharina (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Woessmann, Ludger (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | To study how information about educational inequality affects public concerns and policy preferences, we devise survey experiments in representative samples of the German population. Providing information about the extent of educational inequality strongly increases concerns about educational inequality but only slightly affects support for equity-oriented education policies, which is generally high. The small treatment effects are not due to respondents' failure to connect policies with educational inequality or aversion against government interventions. Support for compulsory preschool is the one policy with a strong positive information treatment effect, which is increased further by informing about policy effectiveness. |
| Keywords: | inequality, education, information, survey experiment |
| JEL: | D30 H52 I24 H11 D63 D83 D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11730&r=eur |
| By: | Nico Keilman; Dinh Q. Pham; Astri Syse (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | Historically, official Norwegian mortality projections computed by Statistics Norway have consistently under-predicted life expectancy. The projected age distribution of deaths may be used to check if the official mortality projections are plausible. The aim of the paper is to verify whether the projections predict a continuation of the ongoing compression in mortality and of the steady upward shift in the ages at which people die. We use official period data on observed (1900-2015) and projected (2016- 2060) sex- and age-specific mortality to estimate the age distribution of life table deaths. We analyse trends in life expectancy at birth, modal and median ages at death, and standard deviation of the age distribution at ages > 30. The historical shifts towards longer longevity are projected to continue into the future. The projections suggest a steady increase in the modal and the median age at death for men and women towards values between 90 and 94 years in 2060. At present these ages are in the range 83-90 years. Simultaneously, deaths become more concentrated around the mean, as the standard deviation of the age distribution is projected to fall continuously. Statistics Norway’s projection methodology is capable of tracking ongoing processes of mortality shifts towards higher ages and a compression of mortality around the modal and mean ages. Mortality projections could potentially benefit from including assessments of the age distribution of deaths. |
| Keywords: | age distribution; life expectancy; median age; modal age; mortality compression; mortality delay; Norway; population projection |
| JEL: | C53 I10 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:884&r=eur |
| By: | Ana Rute Cardoso; Louis-Philippe Morin |
| Abstract: | We investigate the potential channels that drive female labor force participation to rise in response to unbalanced sex ratios, in the presence of strong social norms against female employment. One such channel is women's desired labor supply, operating through the marriage market, and the other is employers' de mand for female labor. If faced with a reduction in male workforce, do employers turn to women to fill in the gap? Do women enter traditionally male occupations and industries, so that segregation decreases? Does the gender pay gap decline? We exploit exogenous variation in sex ratios across cohorts and regions, by using instruments based on casualties from the Portuguese Colonial War and massive emigration in the 1960s combined with its historical regional patterns. We find that as the sex ratio declined, female participation increased, women entered tra traditionally male-dominated occupations and industries, and the gender pay gap declined. These findings are consistent with a demand shock. Our estimated impact of sex ratios on marriage market points to a muted supply channel. We complement the quantitative analysis with an archival case. Our findings help to explain an apparent puzzle, a decades-long high female participation in Portugal, as opposed to the other Southern European countries. |
| Keywords: | Labor demand, labor force participation, gender segregation, pay gap |
| JEL: | J21 J23 N34 J22 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1051&r=eur |
| By: | Bratsberg, Bernt (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Hernaes, Øystein (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Markussen, Simen (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Raaum, Oddbjørn (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Røed, Knut (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact on youth crime of a welfare reform that tightened activation requirements for social assistance clients. The evaluation strategy exploits administrative individual data in combination with geographically differentiated implementation of the reform. We find that the reform reduced crime among teenage boys from economically disadvantaged families. Stronger reform effects on weekday versus weekend crime, reduced school dropout, and favorable long-run outcomes in terms of crime and educational attainment, point to both incapacitation and human capital accumulation as key mechanisms. Despite lowered social assistance take-up we uncover no indication that loss of income support pushed youth into crime. |
| Keywords: | social assistance, youth crime, activation |
| JEL: | H55 I29 I38 J18 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11719&r=eur |
| By: | Endrejat, Vanessa; Thiemann, Matthias |
| Abstract: | In recent years European financial regulation has experienced a tremendous reorientation with respect to the shadow banking system, which manifested first and foremost in its reframing as market-based finance. Initially identified as a source of systemic risk certain initiatives did not only fall much behind the envisaged changes but all to the contrary have been substantially modified in a way that they now aim at revitalizing these activities. The reorientation of European regulatory agency on shadow banking post-crisis, from curtailing it to facilitating resilient market-based finance, has been a cause for irritation by academic observers, dismissed by some as mere rebranding or taken as a sign of regulatory capture. All to the contrary, this paper documents the central role of regulatory agency in shadow banking's reconfiguration. It does so by analyzing the European initiatives concerning the regulation of Asset-Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP) and another prime example of shadow banking, Money Market Mutual Funds (MMFs). Based on documentary analysis and expert interviews we trace the way the recently published EU frameworks for MMFs and ABCP have been designed (in particular the STS, CRR and MMF regulation in 2017). Furthermore, we show how they have been transformed in such a way that their final versions allow to re-establish the shadow banking chain linking MMFs, the ABCP market and arguably the regular banking system. This transformation is driven by a new form of pro-active European regulatory agency which aims at creating a regulatory infrastructure able to sustain the orderly flow of real economy debt. Far from being captured by the industry, they did so consciously and in cooperation with private actors in order to maintain a channel for credit creation outside of bank credit, a task made more complicated by the rushed politicized final negotiations coupled with technical complexity. This paper thereby contributes to a new strand of literature, seeing the creation and reconfiguration of the shadow banking system as characterized by the active and conscious role of state actors. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:222&r=eur |
| By: | Ewa Kucharska-Stasiak; Magdalena Zaleczna; Konrad Zelazowski |
| Abstract: | Housing markets are primarily of the local and national character. This is mostly due to the specificity of real estate (mainly its immobility),as well as historical and socio-economic determinants (influencing the structure of housing stock, the purchasing power of households in the housing market, the profitability of housing investment, the cost of financing housing). Among the crucial factors determining the development path of national housing markets one can mention their institutional organisation. Institutions, legal regulations, cultural norms create the framework within which housing markets operate. In the process of integration of the European economies, however, the trend towards the unification of institutional background of national housing markets can be seen.The aim of the paper is to investigate the scope and dynamics of institutional convergence processes in European housing markets. Three dimensions of institutional environment of housing markets were investigated: the role of public authorities in housing sector, the ownership structure of housing stock and the housing finance system. |
| Keywords: | convergence; Housing Markets; institutional dimension of housing sector; institutional economics |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_279&r=eur |
| By: | Capéau, Bart; Decoster, André; Maes, Sebastiaan; Vanheukelom, Toon |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a framework to establish a micro-based budget and welfare evaluation of a joint reform in personal income taxes, social security contributions and indirect taxes. One often lacks an encompassing model for both labour supply decisions in real world tax and benefit contexts and the allocation of disposable income to commodities. In this paper we therefore elicit the assumptions which allow us to combine different submodels, such that an assessment of a joint reform becomes possible in a consistent conceptual framework. In addition, we characterise households' labour supply decisions by a random utility random opportunity (RURO) model of job choice. This allows us to incorporate effects from the demand side of the labour market into our analysis. We apply this framework to a recently enacted Belgian tax reform which shifts the burden away from labour taxes. We find substantial empirical evidence that, both from a distributional and from a budgetary perspective, it is important to account for indirect taxes, for labour demand-side effects and for unobserved job characteristics, when assessing this kind of joint tax reform. As for the budgetary effects, the cost recovery effects of the tax shift are modest. This is, among other things, explained by a more encompassing income effect in our job choice model, than is found in the more classic discrete choice model of labour supply. |
| Date: | 2018–09–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:emodwp:em14-18&r=eur |
| By: | Simone Moriconi (IÉSEG School of Management); Giowanni Peri (University of California, Davis); Riccardo Turati (IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain); |
| Abstract: | In this paper we document the impact of immigration at the regional level on Europeans’ political preferences as expressed by voting behavior in parliamentary or presidential elections between 2007 and 2016. We combine individual data on party voting with a classification of each party’s political agenda on a scale of their "nationalistic" attitudes over 28 elections across 126 parties in 12 countries. To reduce immigrant selection and omitted variable bias, we use immigrant settlements in 2005 and the skill compo- sition of recent immigrant flows as instruments. OLS and IV estimates show that larger inflows of highly educated immigrants were associated with a change in the vote of citizens away from nationalism. How- ever the inflow of less educated immigrants was positively associated with a vote shift towards nationalist positions. These effects were stronger for non-tertiary educated voters and in response to non-European immigrants. We also show that they are consistent with the impact of immigration on individual political preferences, which we estimate using longitudinal data, and on opinions about immigrants. Conversely, immigration did not affect electoral turnout. Simulations based on the estimated coefficients show that immigration policies balancing the number of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants from outside the EU would be associated with a shift in votes away from nationalist parties in almost all European regions. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Nationalism, Elections, Europe |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ies:wpaper:e201713&r=eur |
| By: | Emanuele Fabbiani; Andrea Marziali; Giuseppe De Nicolao |
| Abstract: | Deregulation of energy markets in the 90s boosted the interest in energy derivatives. Over the last two decades, more and more complex financial instruments were developed. Pricing exotic derivatives often involves Monte Carlo simulations, which rely on stochastic processes to model the underlyings. It is thus critical to choose appropriate models and precisely calibrate them, so that they reflect the market scenario. Several models have been proposed in the literature, from the simple Geometric Brownian motion to more complex mean-reverting, multi-factor models. To enable their calibration against listed vanilla options, it is required to compute the variance of their states. This paper presents a simple and general method to compute the covariance matrix of the state though a matrix Lyapunov differential equation, and discusses its numerical and analytical solutions. In terms of computational speed, the latter is found to be 30 to 40 times faster. The availability of an analytical solution paves the way to an efficient market calibration of model parameters. As case studies, EEX German electricity and TTF Dutch gas markets were considered. Two different single-factor models and a two-factor one were calibrated against market prices: out-of-sample validation showed that a two-factor model outperforms the other two approaches. |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1809.03941&r=eur |
| By: | Bossler, Mario (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Oberfichtner, Michael (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Schnabel, Claus (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | The effects of large minimum wage increases, like those planned in the UK and in some US states, are still unknown. We conduct a survey experiment that randomly assigns increases or decreases in minimum wages to about 6,000 establishments in Germany and asks the personnel managers about their expectations concerning employment adjustments. We find that employment reacts asymmetrically to positive and negative changes in minimum wages. The larger the increase in the minimum wage is, the larger the expected reduction in employment. Employment adjustments are more pronounced in those industries and plants which are more strongly affected by the current minimum wage and in those plants that have neither collective agreements nor a works council. In contrast, employment is not found to increase if the minimum wage is reduced by about 10 percent. This mainly reflects that plants with works councils and collective agreements would not cut wages. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, wage cuts, establishment survey, Germany |
| JEL: | J31 J23 D22 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11747&r=eur |
| By: | Christian Bayer (Universitaet Bonn); Moritz Kuhn (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | How much does your wage depend on what you learned, for whom you work, or what job you do? Using largely unexplored administrative data from Germany allows us to relate 80\% of wage variation to observable characteristics of jobs, firms, and workers. One wage determinant stands out: the hierarchy level of a worker, which summarizes responsibility, complexity, and independence of a job. This variable is typically absent in other data sources. The hierarchy ladder explains almost all the rise in wage-dispersion by age and half of the wage growth in life. It also is key to explain gender wage differences. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:648&r=eur |
| By: | Bijwaard, Govert (NIDI - Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute); Alessie, Rob (University of Groningen); Angelini, Viola (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we estimate the effect of early life health on home care use later in life, and we analyse whether this effect is mediated through household composition. We use Dutch administrative data on men born in 1944-1947 who were examined for military service between 1961-1965 and we link them to national data on non-residential care in the period 2004-2013 and data on house- hold status information for the years 1999-2014. We account for confounding factors that influence both early life health and later life home care use. We also account for selective attrition. Our empirical findings show that general health problems in youth is an important health predictor for later life home care use. A large portion of this effect is an indirect effect running through changes in partnership status. |
| Keywords: | home care use, early life health, inverse propensity weighting, mediation |
| JEL: | I10 C40 C30 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11729&r=eur |
| By: | Sotiris Tsolacos; Yi Wu; Samuel Duah |
| Abstract: | We examine office yield behaviour in key European cities which account for the bulk of investment transactions in Europe. A number of studies investigate the cross sectional influences on real estate yields identifying factors which drive the geographical variation of yields. These studies also highlight global factors driving yields in addition to geography specific influences. Research work using time-series data ascertain the impact of dynamic drivers of yields such as the business cycle and yields in alternative asset classes. This study examines the response of yields to dynamic influences that reflect changing macroeconomic and investment conditions. We explicitly examine the relevance of investor sentiment in yield movements by including both direct and indirect measures. The empirical investigation extends to include the ‘flight-to-quality/liquidity” phenomenon in bond and real estate markets. We pool the European office yield data provided by BNP Paribas and opt for a panel VAR (PVAR). This framework allows interaction among variables but also across cities. We study whether yield changes are contemporaneous or some cities move first. Given that the cities in the sample are heterogeneous the PVAR allows for individual heterogeneity by introducing fixed effects. A useful extension of this methodology is to study shocks and their impact across cities such as the response of city office yields to political uncertainties in various parts of Europe. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic; interactions; Modelling; Office; yields |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_273&r=eur |
| By: | Abeliansky, Ana Lucia; Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | There exists a steady trend at which later born cohorts, at the same age, are healthier than earlier born cohorts. We show this trend by computing a health deficit index for a panel of 14 European Countries and six waves of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We find that for each year of later birth, health deficits decline by on average 1.4 - 1.5 percent with insignificant differences between men and women, between countries, and over time. We argue that this trend approximates the rate of medical progress, broadly defined. The steady progress implies substantial delays of human aging. For example, the level of health deficits experienced at age 65 by individuals born 1920 is predicted to be experienced at age 85 by individuals born 1945. The potential health gains are not fully appropriated by individuals of low socio-economic status. Their health deficits decline at about the same rate but from a higher level, which means that we find long-run persistence of health inequality. |
| Keywords: | health,aging,health deficit index,medical progress,health inequality |
| JEL: | I10 I14 I15 I24 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:355&r=eur |
| By: | Ole Jakob Sønstebø |
| Abstract: | Auctions have been used as a pricing mechanism for a wide range of goods over thousands of years. In contrast to common practice in most of the world, auctions also have a central place in the Norwegian real estate market, even for non-distressed properties and in non-boom markets. However, there exists little empirical evidence for optimal bidding strategies from real estate auctions. By using unique bidding journal data from 2280 dwellings sold in the Trondheim region, this paper compares price premiums for two distinct bidding strategies – placing a low or a high opening bid. Results indicate that, on average, placing a low opening bid yields the lower price premium. Furthermore, while a higher number of bidders increases the price premium, this paper finds evidence that signaling and intimidation in the form of placing a high opening bid has a negative impact on the number of bidders compared to placing a low opening bid. However, results show that the strategy fails in reducing the number of bidders more than a medium sized opening bid does. |
| Keywords: | Asset Pricing; English auctions; Real estate auctions |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_231&r=eur |
| By: | Alexander Herzog-Stein; Camille Logeay; Patrick Nüß; Ulrike Stein; Rudolf Zwiener |
| Abstract: | With the empirical analyses of the macroeconomic effects of the introduction of the statutory minimum wage in Germany, the IMK tries to determine the short-term and expected medium- to long-term growth, price and employment effects with the help of a macro-econometric model. As a result, economic growth tended to be stimulated by the introduction of the minimum wage. This was mainly due to the higher wages of the minimum wage beneficiaries and a spillover effect on adjoining wage groups. In particular, this benefited people whose low savings rate led to a particularly strong increase in real private consumption. The price increases triggered were negligible on a macroeconomic scale. At the same time, there was a significant structural effect away from mini-jobs towards additional employment subject to social security contributions, while the volume of work hardly changed in hours. A short-term VAR analysis identifies a significant positive wage effect for 2015, positive (but not significant) overall economic price effects as expected and a clearly positive but not significant effect on employment. The introduction of the statutory minimum wage has helped Germany to embark on a more stable growth course based not only on export success but also on stable growth in domestic demand thanks to better wage development. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:report:141e-2018&r=eur |
| By: | McCarthy, Sinéad N.; O’Rourke, Daniel; Kearney, John; McCarthy, Mary; Henchion, Maeve; Hyland, J. J. |
| Abstract: | Introduction : Food consumption accounts for 20-30% of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. Certain foods have higher emissions than others and are often the target of policy makers to reduce greenhouse gasses associated with food consumption. However, food policy should aim to address both climatic and health imbalances concurrently and hence have more significant impact. Targeting excessive food consumption as a mitigation strategy for greenhouse gas emissions may also have a concurrent impact on the global obesity epidemic Objective: To evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) associated with the excessive food and energy intake in Irish adults. Methods: A secondary analysis of nationally representative data from the National Adult Food & Nutrition Survey, 2011, was conducted. The demographic characteristics, food consumption patterns and diet-associated GHGEs were compared across categories of increasing levels of relative energy intake. One-way ANOVA (p<0.05) was used to determine the level of significance across quintiles of relative energy intake. Results: Different dietary patterns were evident between the categories of varying relative energy intake. A strong positive correlation (r = 0.736; p< 0.001) was evident between dietary GHGE and the EI relative to one’s requirements. In Irish diets, animal products contributed to a large proportion of total dietary GHGE but accounted for much less of overall EI. Plant-based foods were the lowest contributors to total GHGE. When constructing strategies to mitigate dietary carbon emissions, it is important to carefully consider all aspects of sustainability. The exclusion of certain food groups from the average diet may provoke health, economical and/or cultural repercussions. An adherence to the Irish dietary guidelines, including a decrease of EI, can viably attenuate dietary environmental impact Conclusions: The results offer further evidence to support the hypothesis that excessive energy consumption and the overconsumption of certain food types are detrimental to overall diet-associated carbon emissions levels, and that adhering to the current Irish dietary guidelines can potentially lower dietary related GHGE. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2018–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa166:276208&r=eur |
| By: | Hossein Hassani (The Statistical Research Centre, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, UK); Mohammad Reza Yeganegi (Department of Statistics, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze the potential role of growth in inequality for forecasting real housing returns of the United Kingdom (UK). In our forecasting exercise, we use linear and nonlinear models, as well as, measures of absolute and relative consumption and income inequalities at quarterly frequency over the period of 1975 to 2016. Our results indicate that, while nonlinearity in the data generating process of real housing returns is important, growth in inequality does not necessarily carry important information in forecasting the future path of housing prices in the UK. |
| Keywords: | Income and Consumption Inequalities, Real Housing Returns, Forecasting, Linear and Nonlinear Models, United Kingdom |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201859&r=eur |
| By: | Carlo Menon; Timothy DeStefano; Francesco Manaresi; Giovanni Soggia; Pietro Santoleri |
| Abstract: | The report provides an independent and comprehensive evaluation of the economic and social impact of the Italian policy framework for innovative start-ups, also known as the “Start-up Act”, first introduced by the Decree-law 179 in 2012. The policy aims at creating a more favourable environment for small innovative start-ups through a number of complementary instruments, including “fast-track” and zero cost incorporation, simplified insolvency procedures, tax incentives for equity investments, and a public guarantee scheme for bank credit. While the report focuses only on Italy, the “Start-up Act” can be seen as a very useful “laboratory” to inform policies for innovative entrepreneurship across OECD member countries. The evaluation highlights that the impact of the policy on beneficiary firms has been positive overall, but that complementary policy actions in other areas are required in order to further realise the full potential of Italian innovative start-ups. |
| Date: | 2018–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaac:54-en&r=eur |