George Liontos

1. Who Benefits from International Fiscal Cooperation? The Role of Cross-Country Asymmetries, 2023, "The Journal of Economic Asymmetries", Volume 27, June 2023, e00290

With Apostolis Philippopoulos

(Download latest draft)

Within a unified general equilibrium framework, we revisit the problem of international fiscal competition and cooperation when countries differ in some core economic fundamentals. We focus on cross-country differences in productivity, initial public debt and institutional quality. Solving for non-symmetric equilibria, both non-cooperative and cooperative, we show that international fiscal cooperation can create winners and losers even if it is superior to non-cooperation at aggregate level. In particular, our solutions imply that international cooperation hurts those countries with low productivity and poor institutional quality. By contrast, it benefits those countries with fragile public finances.

Presented at:

ASSET Conference (Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece, 2019)

18th Conference on Research on Economic Theory and Econometrics (Tinos, Greece, 2019)

23rd Annual Conference on Macroeconomic Analysis and International Finance (University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece, 2019)

European Public Choice Society (University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, 2019)

1. Who Benefits from International Fiscal Cooperation? The Role of Cross-Country Asymmetries, 2023, "The Journal of Economic Asymmetries", Volume 27, June 2023, e00290

With Apostolis Philippopoulos

(Download latest draft)

Within a unified general equilibrium framework, we revisit the problem of international fiscal competition and cooperation when countries differ in some core economic fundamentals. We focus on cross-country differences in productivity, initial public debt and institutional quality. Solving for non-symmetric equilibria, both non-cooperative and cooperative, we show that international fiscal cooperation can create winners and losers even if it is superior to non-cooperation at aggregate level. In particular, our solutions imply that international cooperation hurts those countries with low productivity and poor institutional quality. By contrast, it benefits those countries with fragile public finances.

Presented at:

ASSET Conference (Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece, 2019)

18th Conference on Research on Economic Theory and Econometrics (Tinos, Greece, 2019)

23rd Annual Conference on Macroeconomic Analysis and International Finance (University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece, 2019)

European Public Choice Society (University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, 2019)

2. Public redistributive policies in general equilibrium: An application to Greece, 2022, "The Journal of Economic Asymmetries", Volume 26, November 2022, e00271

With Angelos Angelopoulos, George Economides, Apostolis Philipppoulos, Stelios Sakkas

(Download latest draft)

We develop a general equilibrium OLG model of a small open economy to quantify the aggregate and distributional implications of a wide menu of public redistributive policies in a unified context. Inequality is driven by unequal parental conditions in financial and human capital. The model is calibrated and solved using fiscal data from Greece. Our aim is to search for public policies, targeted and non-targeted, that can reduce income inequality without damaging the macroeconomy and without worsening the public finances. Pareto-improving reforms that also reduce inequality include an increase in public education spending provided to all and an increase in the inheritance tax rate on financial wealth. At the other end, we identify reforms that may reduce inequality but make everybody worse off. Regarding cases in between, a switch to a fully funded public pension system is good for everybody although it is the rich-born that benefit more by moving to a more efficient macroeconomy.

Presented at:

ASSET Conference (University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece, 2022)

1. The Macroeconomics of Skills Mismatch in the Presence of Emigration, 2023, "DEOS Working Papers"

With Konstantinos Mavrigiannakis, Eugenia Vella

Highly qualified workers in low-skill jobs face a vertical skills mismatch (over-qualification). A high rate of mismatch often prompts skilled jobseekers to search abroad employment that aligns with their qualifications. We introduce emigration in a DSGE model with heterogeneous households, capital-skill complementarity and labor frictions to revisit the nexus between skills mismatch and fiscal policy. We find that a negative shock to government spending increases both low-skilled and high-skilled emigration, which (a) transforms the response of the mismatch employment rate, shifting it from countercyclical to procyclical, and (b) nearly halves the size of the fiscal multiplier. 

2. Time-consistent Optimal Policies in Non-Symmetric Countries, 2022

With Apostolis Philippopoulos

Adjunct Lecturer

• Agricultural Economics, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Spring 2025)

• Theory of Economic Growth, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Spring 2025)

• Business Economics, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2024)

• Macroeconomic Policies of the EU, Undergraduate, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2022)

• Economics of Social Policies in the EU, Undergraduate, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2022)

• Technical Auditing, Undergraduate, Department of Digital Industry Economies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (Spring 2022)

• Quality Management, Undergraduate, Department of Digital Industry Economies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (Fall 2021)

• Industrial Organization, Undergraduate, Department of Digital Industry Economies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (Fall 2021)

• Economic Geography, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Spring 2021)

• Urban and Regional Economics, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Spring 2021)

Teaching Associate

• Economic Principles and Applications, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Lancaster University Management School (LUMS), UK (2023-2024)

• Quantitative Methods for Economists, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Lancaster University Management School (LUMS), UK (2023-2024)

• Microeconomic Theory I, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2018-2023)

• Macroeconomic Theory I, Graduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2018, 2021-2022)

• Statistics II, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2018, 2019, 2020)

• Macroeconomic Theory I, Undergraduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2019)

• Mathematics for Economists, Graduate, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (Fall 2017)

• 2024-          Researcher, Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (FEIR), Athens, Greece

• 2022-          Postdoctoral Researcher, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
  Supervision: Supervision: Prof. Apostolos Philippopoulos (AUEB, ECON)

• 2022-2023 Postdoctoral Researcher, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
  Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI)
  Supervision: Assist. Prof. Eugenia Vella (AUEB, DIEES)

• 2019-2021 Research Fellow, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
  Funding, Partnership Agreement, 2014-2020
  Supervision: Prof. Apostolis Philippopoulos (AUEB, ECON)
  Assoc. Supervision: Prof. George Economides (AUEB, DIEES)
  Recent PhD: Angelos Angelopoulos

• 2019 Research Assistant, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
  Data collection, data digitilization
  Supervision: Prof. Christos Genakos (Cambridge Judge Business School)