We use a panel of 155 countries to assess the links between growth, productivity and government debt. Via growth equations we assess simultaneity, endogeneity, cross-section dependence, nonlinearities, and threshold effects. We find a negative effect of the debt ratio. For the OECD, the higher the debt maturity the higher economic growth; financial crisis are detrimental for growth; fiscal consolidation promotes growth; and higher debt ratios are beneficial to TFP growth. The growth impact of a 10% increase in the debt ratio is-0.2% (0.1%) respectively for countries with debt ratios above (below) 90% (30%), and an endogenous debt ratio threshold of 59% can be derived.

We use data for a panel of 60 countries over the period 1980-2005 to investigate the main drivers of the likelihood of structural reforms. We find that: (i) external debt crises are the main trigger of financial and banking reforms; (ii) inflation and banking crises are the key drivers of external capital account reforms; (iii) banking crises also hasten financial reforms; and (iv) economic recessions play an important role in promoting the necessary consensus for financial, capital, banking and trade reforms, especially in the group of OECD-countries. Additionally, we also observe that the degree of globalisation is relevant for financial reforms, in particular in the group of non-OECD countries. Moreover, an increase in the income gap accelerates the implementation of structural reforms, but increased political fragmentation does not seem to have a significant impact

We measure the success of fiscal consolidation, with alternative definitions, based on ad-hoc quantitative approaches and on a policy-action approach. The cyclically adjusted primary balance, and the duration of the consolidation contribute for its success, and the opposite applies for revenue-based consolidations.

In this paper, we provide short‐run and long‐run tax buoyancy estimates for 107 countries (distributed between advanced, emerging and low income) for the period 1980–2014. By means of fully modified ordinary least square (OLS) and (pooled) mean group estimators, we find that (1) for advanced economies, both long‐run and short‐run buoyancies are not different from 1; (2) long‐run tax buoyancy exceeds 1 in the case of corporate income tax (CIT) for advanced economies, personal income tax and social security contributions in emerging markets and taxes on goods and services for low‐income countries; (3) in advanced countries, the buoyancy of the CIT buoyancy is larger during contractions than during times of economic expansions, whereas in emerging market economies, this is the case for the CIT and taxes on goods and services; and (4) both trade openness and human capital increase buoyancy, while inflation and output volatility decrease it. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

BackgroundIn this paper we investigate the causal relationship between suicide and a variety of socioeconomic variables. We use a panel data set of Canadian provinces, 2000 – 2008, and a set of recent panel econometric techniques in order to account for a variety of statistical specification issues.ResultsWe find that the social and economic determinants of suicide in Canadian provinces vary across total, male, and female counts (natural logarithms) and rates. We also find that the results vary depending on the econometric method employed. As such, separate analyses for males and females is necessary for a better understanding of the factors that impact suicide (consistent with previous research) and that the choice of statistical method impacts the results. Lastly, it is important to note the particular provinces are driving the results for particular socioeconomic variables.ConclusionsSuch a result, if generalizable, has significant implications for suicide prevention policy.

The recent COVID-19 crisis has generated a concern that productivity (which was already at historically low levels) may further decline. From a theoretical standpoint, the recessions-total factor productivity (TFP) nexus is ambiguous à priori . This paper empirically examines the dynamic impact of recessions on TFP. We compute a new measure of utilization-adjusted productivity from a sample of 24 industries in 18 advanced economies between 1970 and 2014. Resorting to the local projection method we trace out the dynamic short to medium-term impact of such recessionary shocks. We find that deep recessions lead to a permanent deterioration in the level of total factor productivity. This effect is driven by the increase in resource misallocation across different sectors.

This paper studies the empirical link between government size, institutions and economic activity using a panel of 140 countries over 40 years. Our results, robust under different econometric techniques, show mostly a negative effect of government size on output, while institutional quality has generally a positive impact. Moreover, the detrimental effect of government size on economic activity is stronger the lower institutional quality, and the positive effect of institutional quality on output increases with smaller government sizes.

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