Claudio Deiana , Andrea Geraci , Giovanni Mastrobuoni , Simon Weidenholzer
{"title":"Running the risk: Immunity and mobility in response to a pandemic","authors":"Claudio Deiana , Andrea Geraci , Giovanni Mastrobuoni , Simon Weidenholzer","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105057","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105057","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The relative effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns and work-from-home mandates, depends on whether individuals adjust their social behavior in response to infection risk when policy restrictions are absent. Exploiting geographic variation in COVID-19 exposure during the first wave, three key results emerge. First, we find evidence that areas with relatively high excess death rates during the first wave of the pandemic had relatively low excess death rates during the second wave. Second, using granular mobility data from GPS devices, we show that the same areas saw relatively high mobility during the second wave, which may suggest that the first finding is driven by an immunity effect. Finally, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that scarring, behavioral responses, and immunization may operate with varying intensity across municipalities with different age compositions, yielding observable differences in both second-wave mobility and mortality patterns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105057"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144147208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"IMF programs and borrowing costs does size matter?","authors":"Salim Chahine , Ugo Panizza , Guilherme Suedekum","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105070","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105070","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies whether IMF programs and their size affect borrowing costs by comparing bonds issued immediately before the onset of the program with bonds issued immediately after the program. We show that, on average, the approval of the program leads to a 72-basis points reduction in borrowing costs and that program size matters. Our point estimates indicate that when program size increases by one percent of GDP, borrowing costs decrease by 23 basis points. We also show that program size mostly matters for ex-post programs (i.e., those implemented during crises). For precautionary ex-ante programs, there is some evidence that program size attenuates the reduction in borrowing costs. However, this effect is small and in most cases IMF programs still lead to a statistically significant reduction in borrowing costs</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105070"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144170497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Monetary policy in the euro area: Active or passive?","authors":"Alice Albonico , Guido Ascari , Qazi Haque","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105050","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105050","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We estimate a medium-scale DSGE model for the euro area from the introduction of the euro to mid-2023, testing for indeterminacy in monetary policy. While the indeterminacy model occasionally fits the data better, this result is fragile and sensitive to technical assumptions, particularly the correlation between sunspot and fundamental shocks. Additionally, inflation responses under indeterminacy contradict standard economic theory and empirical evidence. In contrast, the determinacy model aligns with both theory and empirical data, particularly in response to monetary policy shocks. Our findings support the view that monetary policy in the euro area has been sufficiently active to stabilize inflation and prevent self-fulfilling inflationary expectations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105050"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144124885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alessandro Bellina , Giordano De Marzo , Vittorio Loreto
{"title":"Modelling singularities in macroevolution","authors":"Alessandro Bellina , Giordano De Marzo , Vittorio Loreto","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105052","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105052","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Macroevolutionary dynamics often display sudden, explosive surges, where systems remain relatively stable for extended periods before experiencing dramatic acceleration that frequently exceeds traditional exponential growth. This pattern is evident in biological evolution, cultural shifts, and technological progress and is often referred to as the emergence of singularities. Despite their widespread occurrence, these explosions arise from distinct underlying mechanisms in different domains. In this context, we present a unified framework that captures these dynamics through a theory of combinatorial innovation. Building on the Theory of the Adjacent Possible, we model macroevolutionary change as a process driven by recombining pre-existing elements within a system. By formalising these qualitative insights, we provide a mathematical structure that explains the emergence of these explosive phenomena, facilitates comparisons across different systems, and enables predictive insights into future evolutionary trajectories. Moreover, by comparing discrete and continuous formalisations of the theory, we emphasise that the occurrence and observation of these presumed singularities should be carefully considered, as they arise from the continuous limit of inherently discrete models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105052"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144131364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Know thy enemy: Information acquisition in contests","authors":"Zhuoqiong Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105051","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105051","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies the incentives for and consequences of acquiring information about rivals in winner-take-all contests. Each player can acquire private information about the rival’s value from an arbitrarily large set of signals before the competition. A player who acquires a more accurate signal than their rival wins more often with the same expected effort as the rival. Being the target of a rival’s information acquisition does not harm the player, and learning partial information about each other benefits both players. Nevertheless, they may choose not to acquire any information if the accuracies of their signals are not publicly observable.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105051"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144134856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Endogenous business cycles with small and large firms","authors":"Qazi Haque , Oscar Pavlov , Mark Weder","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105058","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105058","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent decades have seen a rise in the market power of large firms. We propose a theory in which their technology involves the ability to produce multiple products. Large firms interact with smaller competitors and market share reallocations via product creation generate heterogeneous markup dynamics across the firm types. Higher market shares of large firms increase the parameter space for macroeconomic indeterminacy. Bayesian estimation of the general equilibrium model suggests the importance of the endogenous amplification of the product creation channel and animal spirits play a non-trivial role in driving U.S. business cycles.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105058"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144170495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Repeated contests with commitment types","authors":"Stefano Barbieri , Marco Serena","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105055","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105055","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Contestants fight in repeated contests and privately know whether they are rational utility maximizers or automatons committed to always fighting “all-in.” In the unique symmetric equilibrium, rational contestants fight all-in in early contests as doing so buys a beneficial “all-in look” that intimidates rivals in future contests. In equilibrium, several structural differences emerge between periods in which multiple contestants maintain an all-in look, as opposed to one: most prominently, <em>only</em> in the former case aggregate efforts may exceed the per-period prize, and <em>only</em> in the latter payoffs can be positive.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105055"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144116753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thiess Buettner , Frank Hechtner , Boryana Madzharova
{"title":"Taxes and gender equality: The incidence of the ‘tampon tax’","authors":"Thiess Buettner , Frank Hechtner , Boryana Madzharova","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105054","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105054","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper uses a permanent reduction of the “tampon tax” in Germany to study the price and unit-sales effects of the tax. Exploiting an extensive data set on the sales and scanner prices of feminine hygiene products in Germany and Italy, our results show that the incidence of tampon taxes is fully on consumers, while demand for these products is price-inelastic. We do not find cross-price effects for a closely related product group, which remained taxed at the standard tax rate. We conclude that reducing taxes on feminine hygiene products could be an effective measure to address “period poverty”.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105054"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144147207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael Ehrmann , Dimitris Georgarakos , Geoff Kenny
{"title":"Credibility gains from central bank communication with the public","authors":"Michael Ehrmann , Dimitris Georgarakos , Geoff Kenny","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105069","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105069","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Enhancing central bank credibility among the general public is a challenging task, not least because it is difficult to reach out to this group: even the revision of the ECB’s inflation target in 2021 went largely unnoticed by consumers. However, randomised information treatments conducted in a representative consumer survey in the six largest euro area countries reveal that communicating information about the target can enhance the perceived probability that price stability will be maintained in the medium-term. Especially if some explanation about the role of monetary policy is provided, credibility can be boosted also among the less financially literate, and the credibility gains are noticeable even in periods when inflation has increased.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105069"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144134857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Supply shocks, employment gap, and monetary policy","authors":"Takushi Kurozumi , Willem Van Zandweghe","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105049","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2025.105049","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How should monetary policy respond to supply shocks in terms of inflation and employment stabilization? We introduce labor force entry and exit in an otherwise standard model with staggered price- and wage-setting to include employment in the model. A welfare-maximizing policy features wage growth stabilization with variation in the employment gap and inflation. Under staggered price- and wage-setting, the real wage adjustments to shocks entail a welfare cost, and variation in the employment gap contributes to reducing the welfare cost. Therefore, leaning against the employment gap induces substantial welfare losses for supply shocks compared to the welfare-maximizing policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"177 ","pages":"Article 105049"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144089849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}