Publications

Tax Expenditures Deserve Far More Scrutiny

| 30 December 2015
Fiscal, Blog | Tags: Tax Expenditures, UK
Last month, the UK government presented its Spending Review, setting out departmental budgets for the next four years. There were protections for some departments and large cuts (though smaller than expected) for others. Coming after years of previous cuts, many departmental budgets by 2019 will ... continue reading

Paris to Nairobi

| 23 December 2015
Trade, Blog | Tags: Climate, India, TPP, TTIP, WTO
Trade negotiations didn’t have the happy ending of COP-21. But they portend major changes for the WTO. This month has witnessed two important events whose outcomes point to different conclusions for the future of multilateral cooperation. While the Paris Agreement belied pessimistic expectations and produced ... continue reading

Boosting R&D through Patent Boxes. Panacea or Not?

| 10 December 2015
Fiscal, Blog | Tags: BEPS, Innovation, Tax Competition, Tax Expenditures
On October 5th, the OECD presented the final package of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative – a cornerstone in the international drive towards corporate tax reform. ... continue reading

The Distributional Implications of the Crisis and Policy Responses

| 8 December 2015
Monetary, Blog | Tags: Inequality, QE
The conduct of monetary policy over the last few years is totally unprecedented. Efforts have been made to influence all parts of the term structure of interest rates and credit spreads as well. Policy rates have been reduced essentially to zero. Forward guidance has also ... continue reading

Save our Steel! Save our Jobs?

| 13 November 2015
Trade, Blog | Tags: Anti-Dumping, China, EU, Steel, Tariffs
EU member States have recently intensified their calls upon the European Commission to deploy trade defence measures to stem the rising tide of cheap imports of steel from China. It is contended that the slowdown of the Chinese domestic economy has prompted steel manufacturers to ... continue reading

Looking for a Way out the Subsidies Labyrinth in Argentina

| 16 October 2015
Fiscal, Monetary, Blog | Tags: Energy, Inflation, Subsidies
In the midst of a heated electoral campaign, subsidies are at the centre of the political debate in Argentina. Shock or gradual approaches to reform those transfers have emerged as the buzzwords of the moment as the presidential race heats up. ... continue reading

Tax Expenditures and Sustainability

| 8 October 2015
Fiscal, Blog | Tags: Renewables, Tax Expenditures
What do 1.8 billion Euro given to Italian farmers, 69.7 billion US$ provided to US homeowners, and 75 billion A$ allocated to support the retirement income system in Australia have in common? They are channeled through tax expenditures. ... continue reading

Price Level Changes and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth Across the Euro Area

and | 17 September 2015
Monetary, Research Papers | Tags: Inequality, Inflation
We document the presence of sizable nominal wealth redistribution effects from unexpected price level movements in the Euro Area (EA), using sectoral accounts and newly available data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The EA as a whole is a net loser of unexpected ... continue reading

Low Interest Rates: An Opportunity for Renewables

| 8 July 2015
Monetary, Blog | Tags: Energy, Interest Rates
Putting the economy on an environmentally sustainable path requires a serious shift into green technologies. Such a shift includes substantial investments in technologies that are based on renewable energy to produce electricity – referred to hereinafter as “green energy technologies”. Interest rates directly and significantly ... continue reading

The Impact of Interest Rates on Electricity Production Costs

| 25 June 2015
Monetary, Discussion Notes | Tags: Energy, Interest Rates
Putting the economy on an environmentally sustainable path requires substantial investments in green energy technologies. Long-term interest rates play a crucial role for energy investments. Against this background, we study the impact of interest rates on the costs of producing electricity with different technologies, using ... continue reading