INFORMAL CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE: AN ANALYSIS FOR THREE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Changes in formal and informal central bank independence (CBI) in France, Italy and the United Kingdom in the period from the mid-1970s to the 1990s are examined; the major changes occurred in the 1990s, after the disinflations of the 1980s. Broad trends in the informal independence of central banks (CBs), defined as the ability to pursue price stability regardless of the government's preferences, are identified on the basis of a monetary policy narrative and an analysis of a set of qualitative determinants of informal independence. The most important determinants are the social/political acceptance that monetary policy is the sphere of the CB, the existence of anti-inflationary commitments in the form of intermediate targets for monetary policy, the degree of social consensus on the means and ends of macroeconomic policy, and the relative technical expertise of the CB. These broad trends help to explain some of the inflation experience of the 1980s and 1990s, which cannot be understood in terms of changes to formal CBI.     

Economic integration,industrial structure,and catch-up growth: Firm-level evidence from Poland

We examine if and how deeper economic integration with high-income nations impacts industrial performance. We exploit Poland's accession to the EU in 2004 as a source of variation in the degree of market integration with Germany. Using data on Polish manufacturing firms in the period 1995–2013, we find that EU accession was followed by significant within-firm growth in output and productivity, notably in industries in which Germany was more specialized at the moment of accession. Increased flows of German investment to these sectors played an important role in shaping these effects.     

Subjective Inheritance Expectations and Economic Outcomes

In this paper we investigate whether and to what extent inheritance expectations act as a driver of economic choices. We use survey data that are representative of the Dutch adult population with a specific module on subjective probabilities on receiving an inheritance and its amount in the next 10 years. We analyze whether the expected inheritance acts as a deterrent to saving. Results suggest that individuals perceive the expected inheritances as a potential increase of personal wealth, which leads to a reduction in savings. Expectations also appear to matter for the intentions to bequeath and for intended choices on work versus leisure in the future.     

Do risk and competition trigger conditional cooperation? Evidence from public good experiments

We investigate the effect of intra-group competition and risk marginal per capita returns on subjects' cooperative behavior in a one-shot public good game—following the well-known approach proposed by Fischbacher, Gächter, and Fehr (2001) and extending the Colasante et al. (2018, 2019) parametrization. We study the interaction between environment and social preferences and test the existence of a causal relationship of risk and competition over cooperative behavior when an individual's benefit of the public good is heterogeneous and uncertain. Our results report experimental evidence about competition fostering cooperative behavior leading to a rise in contribution for all the subjects regardless of their social preferences. However, risk has a detrimental effect on cooperative behavior due to encouraging free riding.