{"title":"Robots, occupations, and worker age: A production-unit analysis of employment","authors":"Liuchun Deng , Steffen Müller , Verena Plümpe , Jens Stegmaier","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104881","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104881","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We analyze the impact of robot adoption on employment composition using novel micro data on robot use of German manufacturing plants linked with social security records and data on job tasks. Our task-based model predicts more favorable employment effects for the least routine-task intensive occupations and for young workers, the latter being better at adapting to change. An event-study analysis for robot adoption confirms both predictions. We do not find decreasing employment for any occupational or age group but churning among low-skilled workers rises sharply. We conclude that the displacement effect of robots is occupation-biased but age neutral whereas the reinstatement effect is age-biased and benefits young workers most.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104881"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142530022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Active or passive? Revisiting the role of fiscal policy during high inflation","authors":"Stephanie Ettmeier , Alexander Kriwoluzky","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104874","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104874","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the interplay of the monetary–fiscal policy mix during times of crisis by drawing insights from the Great Inflation of the 1960s and 1970s. We use a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm to estimate a DSGE model with three distinct monetary/fiscal policy regimes. We show that, in such a model, SMC outperforms standard sampling algorithms because it is better suited to deal with multimodal posteriors, an outcome that is highly likely in a DSGE model with monetary–fiscal policy interactions. From the estimation with SMC, a differentiated perspective results: pre-Volcker macroeconomic dynamics were similarly driven by passive monetary/passive fiscal policy and fiscal dominance. We apply these insights to study the post-pandemic inflation period.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104874"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142530025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Income or leisure? On the hidden benefits of (un)employment","authors":"Adrian Chadi , Clemens Hetschko","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104879","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104879","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Do unemployed people benefit from more free time, while consumption is the sole motive for employed people to accept a life with less available time? Does this apply equally to men and women? To inform ongoing policy debates on how to address the problem of unemployment, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the traditionally assumed trade-off between income and leisure in labor supply decisions, which has been contested for a variety of reasons. Using rich German panel data, we compare non-employed individuals after plant closures with employed individuals regarding their subjective well-being obtained from time use and income. We find that increased non-working time through unemployment translates into higher free-time satisfaction, while also improving satisfaction with family life, as a possible hidden benefit of being unemployed when having more time for home production. Meanwhile, there is a strong decline in satisfaction with household income, especially among unemployed men, which cannot be explained solely by a lower level of income. We inspect the role of social norms in this context and argue that individuals obtain identity utility through having a job that ensures being self-sufficient, as a hidden benefit of employment. Based on studying unemployed workers transitions into retirement and a separately conducted survey experiment, we provide strong evidence on the importance of the social norm of earning a living from work. Our experiment also shows that home production is a way of mitigating the pressure to comply with this norm, which is true for men and women alike.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104879"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142706312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate finance, collateralized borrowing, and monetary policy","authors":"Yu-Chen Liu , Yiting Li","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104878","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104878","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We construct a monetary model in which entrepreneurs facing uncertainty in input costs and returns of projects may finance investment internally and with bank credit. Entrepreneurs using money as a down payment and bonds as collateral can reduce the default probability. Working through these key channels, lower nominal policy rates and open market sales can reduce the real lending rate. The central bank’s private asset purchases improve availability of credit and compress risk spreads. Our model identifies the risk-reducing channel of private asset purchases—the policy functions as if the government had supplied more bonds, and the increased collateralizable bonds are allocated more to corporate borrowings with a higher lending risk. Risk-retention requirements associated with asset purchases are essential to welfare. As uncertainty with respect to input costs and investment returns intensifies, the central bank should lower the optimal risk-retention rate to encourage lending and reduce business failures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104878"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142530023","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":"The bright side of the doom loop: Banks’ sovereign exposure and default incentives","authors":"Luis E. Rojas , Dominik Thaler","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104876","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104876","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The feedback loop between sovereign and financial sector insolvency, termed the “doom loop”, was a key driver of the European debt crisis and motivated an array of policy proposals. This paper revisits the “doom loop” focusing on governments’ incentives to default. We introduce a 3-period model with strategic sovereign default, where debt is held by both domestic banks and foreign investors. The government maximizes domestic welfare; thus, the temptation to default increases with externally-held debt. Importantly, the cost of default arises endogenously from the damage that default causes to domestic banks’ balance sheets. Domestically-held debt thus serves as a commitment device for the government. We show that two prominent policy prescriptions – lower exposure of domestic banks to domestic sovereign debt or a commitment not to bailout banks – can backfire, since default incentives depend not only on the quantity of debt, but also on who holds it. Conversely, allowing domestic banks to buy additional domestic sovereign debt during times of sovereign distress can avert the doom loop. In the context of a monetary union similar unintended negative consequences may arise from a backstop by the central bank (<em>e.g.</em>, the ECB’s Transmission Protection Instrument) if imprecisely calibrated or the pooling of debt (<em>e.g.</em>, European safe bond, also known as ESBies).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104876"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142446743","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":"Energy shocks as Keynesian supply shocks: Implications for fiscal policy","authors":"Enisse Kharroubi , Frank Smets","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104875","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104875","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper analyses the economic impact of and the optimal policy response to energy supply shocks in a flexible price model with heterogeneous households. We introduce energy as a consumption good on the demand side and as an input to production on the supply side. A distinguishing feature is that, in line with empirical evidence, we allow households’ energy demand to be non-homothetic. The model provides three main insights. First, (negative) energy supply shocks act as a (negative) demand shocks, or Keynesian supply shocks, when two conditions are met: On the demand side household income inequality needs to be large, while on the supply side, the price elasticity of consumption goods needs to be high. Second, the social planner can implement the first-best allocation by subsidising firms and poor households while taxing rich households. Energy shocks then act as standard supply shocks. Last, issuing public debt can help implement the first best allocation when energy shocks are large and/or the economy’s overall energy intensity is low.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104875"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142530026","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":"Carbon taxes and tariffs, financial frictions, and international spillovers","authors":"Stefano Carattini , Giseong Kim , Givi Melkadze , Aude Pommeret","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104883","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104883","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ambitious climate policy, coupled with financial frictions, has the potential to create macrofinancial stability risk. Such stability risk may expand beyond the economy implementing climate policy, potentially catching other countries off guard. International spillovers may occur because of trade and financial channels. Hence, we study the design and effects of climate policies in the world economy with international trade and financial flows. We develop a two-sector, two-country, dynamic general equilibrium model with financial frictions, climate policies, including carbon tariffs, and macroprudential policies. Using the calibrated model, we evaluate spillovers from unilateral domestic carbon pricing to foreign economies and back. We also examine more ambitious climate architectures involving carbon tariffs or a global carbon price. We find that accounting for cross-border financial flows and frictions in credit markets is crucial to understand the effects of climate policies and to guide the implementation of macroprudential policies at the global scale aimed at minimizing transition risk and paving the way for ambitious climate policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104883"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142441848","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":"Using double-debiased machine learning to estimate the impact of Covid-19 vaccination on mortality and staff absences in elderly care homes.","authors":"Sourafel Girma , David Paton","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104882","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104882","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Machine learning approaches provide an alternative to traditional fixed effects estimators in causal inference. In particular, double-debiased machine learning (DDML) can control for confounders without making subjective judgements about appropriate functional forms. In this paper, we use DDML to examine the impact of differential Covid-19 vaccination rates on care home mortality and other outcomes. Our approach accommodates fixed effects to account for unobserved heterogeneity. In contrast to standard fixed effects estimates, the DDML results provide some evidence that higher vaccination take-up amongst residents, but not staff, reduced Covid mortality in elderly care homes. However, this effect was relatively small, is not robust to alternative measures of mortality and was restricted to the initial vaccination roll-out period.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104882"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142421639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Labour market skills, endogenous productivity and business cycles","authors":"Mirko Abbritti , Agostino Consolo","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104873","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104873","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper analyses how labour market heterogeneity affects unemployment, productivity and business cycle dynamics. To this aim, we set up a model with asymmetric search and matching frictions across skilled and unskilled workers, and endogenous productivity through R&D investment and intangible capital accumulation. Skill mismatch and skill-specific labour market institutions have three main effects on business cycles and growth dynamics. First, the relative scarcity of skilled workers increases the natural rate of unemployment and reduces total factor productivity with long-run effects on the growth rate of output. Second, skill heterogeneity in the labour market generates asymmetric outcomes and amplifies measures of employment, wages and consumption inequality. Finally, the model provides important insights for the Phillips and Beveridge curves. Incorporating skill heterogeneity leads to a flattening of the Phillips curve as wages and unemployment respond unevenly across skill types. Also, the model generates sideward shifts of the Beveridge curve following business cycle shocks, with the extent of these shifts depending on the degree of skill heterogeneity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104873"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142441847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An unemployment re-insurance scheme for the eurozone? Stabilizing and redistributive effects","authors":"Mathias Dolls","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104872","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104872","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper develops a decomposition framework to study the importance of different stabilization channels of an unemployment re-insurance scheme for the euro area. Running counterfactual simulations based on household micro data for the period 2000–21 and studying the effect of different trigger variables and activation rules, the paper finds that the re-insurance would have cushioned on average 7%–14% (3%–6%) of employment income losses through interregional (intertemporal) smoothing. The simulated re-insurance scheme would have been revenue-neutral at EA-19, but not at the member-state level. Average annual inpayments and payouts would have been below 0.1 per cent of GDP. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the re-insurance could offset up to 18% of future output shocks. These results suggest that a re-insurance would significantly strengthen public risk sharing in the euro area.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 104872"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142421640","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}