An empirical analysis of the determinants that can boost Next Generation EU´s effectiveness

Artículo de revistaThe use of Next Generation EU can become one of the main determinants of Spanish economic developments in the coming years. This article analyses the economic impact of the European Regional Development Fund over the last 20 years, on account of the similarity between its goals and those of Next Generation EU and the available information. The findings suggest that those structural reforms that reduce barriers to competition in the product market and some labour market rigidities can scale up the European funds’ expansionary effect (fiscal multiplier) in the medium and long term

Fiscal and environmental policy : three essays on the effect on firms' investment and productivity

Defence date: 6 February 2015Examining Board : Professor Jérôme Adda, EUI & Bocconi University, Supervisor ; Professor Evi Pappa, EUI ; Prof. Emmanuelle Auriol, Toulouse School of Economics ; Professor Dr. Christian Bayer, University of Bonn.This thesis studies how fiscal and environmental policies affect firms' behavior and economic performance. In chapter 1, co-authored with Stefan Lamp, we focus on the effect of tax adjustment on firms' investment decisions. Using a detailed narrative of tax changes in Germany covering 40 years of fiscal adjustments, we define and exploit the exogenous variation of tax bills to quantify the effect of tax changes on future investment plans of firms as well as on realized investment. In chapter 2, co-authored with Hélia Costa, we study how uncertainty over environmental policy affects firms' investment in low-carbon technologies. We model policy uncertainty in the context of an emission trading scheme and we develop a three period sequential model. The set-up of the model combines the industry and electricity sectors and encompasses both irreversible and reversible investment possibilities for firms. Finally, in chapter 3, I investigate whether international and domestic firms' productivity growth may be heterogeneously affected by environmental policy. Using a novel measure of environmental policy stringency and a panel of 11 OECD countries and 22 manufacturing sectors over the period 2000-2009, I estimate the difference in multi-factor productivity growth between multinational and domestic firms associated with a tightening of domestic environmental policy

A tale of two margins: monetary policy and capital misallocation

Este documento explora de forma empírica el impacto de la política monetaria en la asignación del capital a través de su efecto heterogéneo en empresas. Usando datos a nivel de empresa de España del período 1999-2019, mostramos que shocks expansivos de política mejoran la asignación del capital, medido como la dispersión intrasector de la productividad marginal del capital (MRPK). Para analizar los mecanismos que llevan a este resultado, primero exploramos el margen intensivo, y mostramos que, tras un shock expansivo de política monetaria, las empresas con una alta MRPK son las que incrementan relativamente más su capital y su deuda. También documentamos como la MRPK tiene un poder explicativo sobre la sensibilidad de la inversión a política monetaria más fuerte que otras variables, como edad, endeudamiento o efectivo. Esta evidencia apunta a la variable MRPK como una buena proxy de fricciones financieras. En segundo lugar, analizamos el margen extensivo, y mostramos que una política monetaria expansiva aumenta la entrada y disminuye la salida de empresas, aunque el efecto es cuantitativamente pequeño, y no induce a cambios significativos en la composición empresarial de la MRPK. En resumen, esta evidencia apunta a que los shocks expansivos de política monetaria mejoran la asignación de recursos sobre todo a través de la relajación de fricciones financieras de empresas constreñidas con mayor productividad del capital.This paper explores the impact of monetary policy on capital misallocation through its heterogeneous effects on firms. Using Spanish firm-level data covering the period 1999-2019, we show that an expansionary monetary policy shock leads to a decrease in capital misallocation, as measured by the within-industry dispersion of firms’ marginal revenue product of capital (MRPK). To analyse the mechanism behind this finding, we first explore the intensive margin and show that high-MRPK firms increase their investment and their debt financing relatively more than low-MRPK firms after monetary policy easing. We also document that a firm’s MRPK is a much stronger driver of its investment sensitivity to monetary policy than its age, leverage or cash. These findings suggest that MRPK is a good proxy for financial frictions. Second, we explore the extensive margin and show that monetary policy easing increases entry and decreases exit, although the effect is quantitatively small, and it does not lead to significant changes in the composition of high- and low-MRPK entrants or exiters. Overall, the evidence points to expansionary monetary policy decreasing capital misallocation mainly through the relaxation of financial frictions of incumbent, productive, constrained firms

Federal unemployment insurance in the United States

Artículo de revistaUnemployment insurance in the United States is one of the fiscal risk-sharing mechanisms designed to mitigate the negative consequences of economic shocks. The system is based on complementary federal and state benefits, which behave very differently during normal and crisis periods. Thus, unemployment insurance is principally a state competence during normal periods, while the federal government assumes an active role in crisis periods, smoothing the negative impact of economic crises on household consumption and mitigating the heterogeneous effects across states. This is an element that distinguishes the United States from the European Monetary Union, which lacks automatic fiscal stabilising tools for the area as a wholeconsequently the costs arising from shocks have to be assumed by each country individually, which makes it difficult for the area to function homogeneousl

Un análisis empírico de los factores que pueden potenciar la efectividad del programa Next Generation EU

Artículo de revistaEl recurso al programa Next Generation EU (NGEU) puede convertirse en uno de los principales factores que determinen el devenir de la economía española en los próximos años. Este artículo analiza el impacto económico que ha tenido el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional durante los últimos 20 años, debido a la similitud de los objetivos de dichos fondos y del NGEU y a la disponibilidad de información. Los resultados del análisis sugieren que aquellas reformas estructurales que reduzcan las barreras a la competencia en el mercado de productos y algunas rigideces en el mercado laboral pueden aumentar el efecto expansivo (multiplicador fiscal) de los fondos europeos a medio y largo plazo

El seguro de desempleo federal en Estados Unidos

Artículo de revistaEl seguro de desempleo en Estados Unidos es uno de los mecanismos de aseguramiento mutuo de ámbito fiscal diseñados para atenuar las consecuencias negativas de las perturbaciones económicas. Este sistema se basa en la complementariedad de las prestaciones federales y estatales, cuyo comportamiento es muy diferente en períodos normales y de crisis. Así, el sistema de seguro de desempleo es competencia principal de los Estados en los períodos normales, mientras que el Estado federal pasa a adoptar un papel activo en los períodos de crisis, suavizando el impacto negativo de las crisis económicas sobre el consumo de los hogares y mitigando los efectos heterogéneos entre Estados. Este es un elemento diferencial respecto a la Unión Monetaria Europea, que carece de instrumentos de estabilización fiscal automáticos para el conjunto del áreapor ello, los costes derivados de las perturbaciones deben ser asumidos por cada país, lo que dificulta un funcionamiento homogéneo del áre

The investment effect of fiscal consolidation

This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal consolidation, business plans and firm investment. Based on a detailed narrative of tax changes in Germany covering 40 years of fiscal adjustments, we define and exploit the exogenous variation of tax bills to quantify the effect of tax changes on firm future investment plans as well as on realized investment. We find that firms in the manufacturing sector revise downwards their planned investment by about 4% subsequently to a tax increase equal to 1% of the value added in the total manufacturing industry. On the contrary realized investment growth drops by around 8% at impact. Furthermore we find that income and consumption taxes are most harmful to investment and that firms base their investment plans considering laws currently under discussion, anticipating future tax changes. Not taking into account this anticipation effect would lead to strongly biased estimates

Policy Uncertainty and Investment in Low-Carbon Technology

In the context of an emission trading scheme (ETS), we study how uncertainty over the environmental policy affectsfirms' investment in low-carbon technologies. We develop a three period sequential model that combines the industry and the electricity sectors and encompasses both irreversible and reversible investment possibilities for the firms. Additionally, we explicitly model the policy uncertainty in the regulator's objective function as well as the market interactions that give rise to an endogenous price of permits. We find that uncertainty reduces irreversible investment and that the availability of both reversible and irreversible technologies partially eliminates the positive effect of policy uncertainty on reversible technology found in previous literature. Furthermore, we provide a framework that allows to assess the efficiency of different implementations of the scheme

ECB euro liquidity lines

El uso de líneas de liquidez por parte de los bancos centrales ha cobrado impulso desde la crisis financiera mundial, con el fin de proporcionar liquidez en los mercados de divisas, asegurar la estabilidad financiera y evitar efectos indirectos negativos. Mientras que el efecto de las líneas swap en dólares estadounidenses ha recibido mucha atención en la literatura, se sabe mucho menos sobre los efectos de las líneas de liquidez en euros. En este documento se usa una estrategia de diferencias en diferencias para mostrar que el anuncio de una línea de liquidez en euros por parte del Banco Central Europeo con un banco central de fuera del área del euro tiene un efecto directo positivo, ya que la prima pagada en el mercado de divisas para acceder a euros desciende hasta 76 puntos básicos en relación con la prima en monedas no afectadas por el anuncio. Además, el documento proporciona evidencia preliminar de que los anuncios generan efectos indirectos positivos en el área del euro. Así, la cotización bursátil de los bancos de aquellos países del área del euro más vinculados a los países receptores a través de las operaciones de préstamos transfronterizos aumentaría un 6,7%.The use of central bank liquidity lines has gained momentum since the global financial crisis in order to provide liquidity in foreign exchange markets, while at the same time preventing threats to financial stability and negative spillbacks. US dollar swap lines are well studied, but much less is known about the effects of liquidity lines in euros. We use a difference-in-differences strategy to show that the announcement of ECB euro liquidity lines has a direct positive signalling effect since the premium paid by foreign agents to borrow euros in FX markets decreases up to 76 basis points relative to currencies not covered by these facilities. Additionally, the paper provides suggestive evidence that these facilities generate positive spillbacks to the euro area since domestic bank equity prices increase by 6.7% in euro area countries highly exposed via banking linkages to countries whose currencies are targeted by liquidity lines