Fiscal Multipliers and Forecast Errors

Treball Final de Màster Universitari en Economia / Master in Economics. Codi: SRN015. Curs acadèmic 2017-2018The study of the fiscal multipliers is growing interest among economists and generating quite a debate on their determinants, size and forecast methodologies. During the financial crisis there has been some forecasting problems, because it was a unique scenario without any antecedent to support their estimations. In this thesis, we will focus on the Blanchard and Leigh’s research ‘Growth forecast errors and Fiscal multipliers’ published in 2013, in which they showed an underestimation of the fiscal multipliers in the 2010-2011 period. We are going to extend their baseline estimation from 2011-2012 until 2016-2017. The aim is to check if it was an isolate case and if the researchers have learnt to estimate accurately fiscal multipliers for the following periods, or if there is a deeper bias in the methodology of fiscal multipliers forecast which is to be found out. The result shows that fiscal multipliers have been accurately forecasted, that it just was an isolate ‘mistake’. Additionally, we will reinforce our research developing panel data analysis for both data selection, and will carry out a robustness check for the economy’s choice and possible influence for outliers for our case. The panel data analysis shows that the forecast has been more accurate after Blanchard and Leigh’s exposition of underestimation of fiscal multipliers. In the other part of this robustness check, we will make a difference among three groups of economies: European countries, advanced economies and emerging markets estates. Overall, the baseline estimations have been accurate and robust for the outliers’ influence. The results expose that the estimation of the fiscal multipliers is improving after the difficulties of forecasting accurately until 2017 for European countries. However, the fiscal multipliers framework is still being a black box for economic study

The housing bubble boom and burst in Ireland and Spain: an historical perspective

Treball Final de Grau en Economia. Codi: EC1049. Curs: 2015/2016In this work we will analyse the real state bubble, in the case of Spain and Ireland (Celtic Tiger). In the first place, we will explain the historical background of both countries. In the case of Spain, from the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, Second Republic, Civil War, Franco’s Dictatorship, Transition and nowadays Democracy. In the case of Ireland, we will talk about the independence from Great Britain in1922 until nowadays. Therefore, we could observe the differences and similarities: political, historical, economic and cultural, among both countries. We will analyse Spanish and Irish real state bubble, using as indicators: the evolution of prices, the financial system, its financing, and supply and demand of houses. Once observed both countries real state bubbles, we will continue with its comparison. Finally, we will summarize the most relevant conclusions we have reach to about this topic

Do risk and competition trigger conditional cooperative behavior? Evidence from Public good experiment.

We investigate the effect of intragroup competition and risky marginal per capita returns on subjects' cooperative behavior in a one-shot public good game – following the wellknown approach proposed by Fischbacher, Gächter, and Fehr (2001) and extending the Colasante et al. (2019) and Colasante et al. (2018) parametrization. We are aiming to 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 a raise contribution for all the subjects regardless of their social preferences. On the contrary, risky has a detrimental effect on cooperative behavior due to encouraging free riding

Do risk and competition trigger conditional cooperative behavior? Evidence from Public good experiment.

We investigate the effect of intragroup competition and risky marginal per capita returns on subjects' cooperative behavior in a one-shot public good game – following the wellknown approach proposed by Fischbacher, Gächter, and Fehr (2001) and extending the Colasante et al. (2019) and Colasante et al. (2018) parametrization. We are aiming to 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 a raise contribution for all the subjects regardless of their social preferences. On the contrary, risky has a detrimental effect on cooperative behavior due to encouraging free riding

A survey on experimental elicitation of creativity in economics

The interplay between individual creative ability and the way to enhance it is an issue with tremendous potential for economic analysis. In this survey, we dwell into the issue by focusing on the methodological advantages of economic experiments. We provide a review of the literature in experimental economics on creativity, identifying seven main objects of study. Namely, the impact on creativity of: (1) low vs. high monetary incentives, (2) the interplay of monetary incentives and tasks, (3) within-group competition, (4) within-group cooperation, (5) cultural factors, (6) non-monetary social incentives, and (7) strategic behavior. We also classify the studies in our review according to key features of standard experimental procedures in economics, as the type of creative task, the way it is assessed, and the specific subject pool. This multidimensional comparison allows us to conclude that the current lack of robust findings on the determinants of creativity in economics might be due to the absence of comparable experimental studies under the same experimental conditions. Our review also highlights the crucial role of previous research on creativity in the psychological literature in shaping procedures of elicitation of creativity in experimental economics