Publications 

This paper investigates the effect of Climate Change Policies (CCPs) on green innovation, for a sample of 40 advanced and emerging market economies, and five economic sectors, during the period 2000–2021. Our results suggest that CCPs positively affect the production of green patents, with the effect intensifying gradually over time. The effect is larger for non-market-based and technology support policies—such as emission limits, feed-in tariffs and R&D subsidies—in countries with greater competitiveness and during periods of stronger economic activity—that is, higher GDP growth, lower uncertainty and financial stress. The results based on a difference-in-differences approach suggest that the positive effect of stricter CCPs on green innovation is stronger in sectors with limited financial constraints.

In this paper we investigate the role of EU Structural and Investment Funds in affecting the dynamic impact of regional fiscal consolidation on regional income inequality. Relying on a panel of 162 NUTS-2 regions of twelve European countries, we find that regional spending cuts increase regional inequality in the medium-term, with the effects surviving to a large battery of robustness checks. The uneven distributional impact of regional austerity measures is however cushioned by larger EU funds expenditures, especially through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), with the effect magnified during periods of recession and when the regional quality of government is higher.

This paper investigates the impact of climate change policies on inflation, for a large sample of 177 developed and developing economies, 78 subnational territorial areas and 17 sectors, over the period 1989-2022. We show that carbon taxes lead to inflationary pressures. The effect is not negligible: a one standard deviation carbon tax shock—corresponding to a 5$/tCO2 increase in emissions-weighted carbon taxes—leads to an increase of the price level of about 0.7 percent one year after the implementation of the policy, and between 1.6 and 4 percent in the medium term. These results hold at the national, sub-national and sectoral level. The effect is larger when inflation is initially high, and in regions (sectors) characterized by high emissions and low innovation capacity. In contrast, we find that emissions trading systems as well as non-market-based climate change policies (such as R&D subsidies) do not have statistically significant effects on prices.

This paper empirically investigates the impact of economic and policy uncertainty on green innovation for a sample of 81 advanced and emerging market economies during the period 1976–2020. Our results show that increases in uncertainty lead to a long-lasting decrease in green innovation, measured by the number of new green energy patents. This effect holds for a wide set of technologies, it is larger during recessions and periods of higher financial stress, and in countries with less stringent environment protection regulations. Importantly, the effect of uncertainty on green patents is larger than on non-green patents. Results are robust to several sensitivity tests, including an instrumental variable approach and a difference-in-differences strategy.

The spikes in energy prices observed following recent major global shocks—e.g., COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine war —as well as issues related to the diffusion of renewable energy power generation, have reopened the debate about the design of electricity markets and the role of the “state” vs. “market” in the electricity markets governance. In this article, we contribute to this debate by looking at the effect of economic crises on energy markets regulation. We find that, historically, economic crises have been associated with a persistent tightening in energy markets regulation (i.e., more restrictions to competition), with the effect being larger during periods of high economic and policy uncertainty and when governments were politically strong—that is, characterized by a larger majority, in majoritarian systems, and at the beginning of their mandate.

This paper examines the dynamic impact of Climate Change Policies (CCPs) on income inequality, for a sample of 39 developed and developing countries, during the period 1990–2020. The results show that CCPs are associated with a significant and persistent increase in income inequality. The effect is robust across various measures of inequality and sensitivity tests, including an instrumental variable strategy. The effect of CCPs only materializes in the case of market-based CCPs, is stronger in countries characterized by a higher share of low-educated workers and initial level of inequality, while is mitigated in those with comprehensive redistribution policies, and during periods of fiscal expansions and stronger economic growth. These findings have important policy implications, as they emphasize the importance of the timing and design of CCPs, as well as the role of complementary policies.

This paper investigates the role of informality in affecting the magnitude of the public expenditure multiplier in a panel of 142 countries, using the local projections method. We find a strong negative relationship between the degree of informality and the size of the multiplier. This result holds irrespective of the level of economic development and institutional quality and is robust to additional country characteristics such as trade and financial openness and exchange rate regime. In a two-sector New-Keynesian model, we rationalize this result by showing that fiscal shocks raise the relative price of official goods, thereby shifting demand towards the informal sector. This reallocation effect increases with the level of informality, because a larger informal sector is associated with a stronger appreciation of relative prices in response to fiscal shocks, and thus reduces the multiplier.

This paper examines the dynamic effects of pandemic crises on fertility rates for a large, unbalanced sample of 182 developed and developing countries during the period 1996–2019. We find that major pandemics are associated with significant and persistent declines in fertility rates of about 2%, on average. These effects are significantly larger for pandemics characterized by a very large number of confirmed cases relative to the population (up to 6½%) and by deep recessions (up to 5%). In addition, the effects are larger in advanced economies (up to 5%) and for younger women, on average.

This paper examines how fiscal shocks in a given country affect foreign regions through regional trade linkages. Applying the local projection method to a panel of 222 NUTS-2 regions in 20 European countries during the period 1993-2020, we find that countries-to-regions fiscal spillovers are positive, statistically significant, persistent, and non-negligible in size. In addition, fiscal spillovers tend to be larger when the recipient region experiences a recession, when monetary policy of the recipient country is at the zero-lower-bound, and when the recipient region and the source country are both part of the European Monetary Union.

This paper examines the effects of higher energy prices on consumption inequality for a large panel of 129 advanced and developing economies during the period 1970–2013. The results suggest that energy inflation increases the Gini measure of consumption inequality and reduces (increases) the share of consumption of lower (higher) income deciles. These effects are larger in developing economies, in countries with limited access to finance, in those with weaker monetary policy frameworks, during periods of economic slack and in cases where government transfers do not compensate the poorer deciles during times of adverse income shocks.

The article investigates the different growth patterns of islands and mainland regions by looking at their tourism and territorial characteristics differences. We considered per capita income and employment growth patterns in a panel data model focused on 74 regions in seven European countries from 2008 to 2019. The results show how the importance of some growth factors, especially those related to tourism and environmental sustainability, varies between islands and mainland regions. The article suggests specific policy implications for island regions in line with the European Union guidelines. Our findings support the need to pursue different approaches to sustain growth in islands and mainland regions, particularly for the tourism industry.

This paper provides evidence on the impact of major epidemics from the past two decades on income distribution. The pandemics in our sample, even though much smaller in scale than COVID-19, have led to increases in the Gini coefficient, raised the income share of higher-income deciles, and lowered the employment-to-population ratio for those with basic education compared to those with higher education. We provide some evidence that the distributional consequences from the current pandemic may be larger than those flowing from the historical pandemics in our sample, and larger than those following typical recessions and financial crises.

The current COVID-19 pandemic had, and is still having, damaging effects on economic activities. However, similarly to past pandemic and epidemic episodes, its impact risks to be geographically uneven. Based on pandemic and epidemic episodes of the latest two decades, in this paper we try to conjecture the possible future impact that the current pandemic may have on several regional outcomes such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. Specifically, we investigate how this impact differs across regions, evaluating some of the different channels through which the heterogeneous effect of health crises may be transmitted to regional economies.

This paper provides cross-country evidence on the relationship between growth in CO2 emissions and real GDP growth from 1960 to 2018. The focus is on distinguishing longer-run trends in this relationship from short-run cyclical fluctuations, and on documenting changes in these relationships over time. Using two filtering techniques for separating trend and cycle, we find that long-run trends show evidence of decoupling in richer nations—particularly in European countries—but not yet in developing economies, and that there is stronger evidence of decoupling over the 1990 to 2018 sub-period than over the earlier 1960 to 1989 sub-period. There is also a strong cyclical relationship between emissions and real GDP growth in both advanced and developing economies, and the strength of this relationship has not weakened much over time. The cyclical relationship is largely symmetric: emissions fall about as much during recessions as they rise during booms. The transition to a low-carbon economy will thus require continued progress not only in bringing down trend emissions, particularly in developing economies, but also in taming the increase in emissions that occurs during the boom phase of the business cycle.

Taxes are essential for a government to function correctly, because they fund public services and promote long-term growth in a country. Tax morale is a positive attitude toward taxation shaped by extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, including numerous psychological factors. However, these factors are far from completely clear and a better understanding of what drives tax morale can greatly help governments in the design of tax policies and their administration. In this paper we test the novel hypothesis that life satisfaction is one of the psychological aspects affecting tax morale. Using longitudinal data from the World Value Survey, we show that people more satisfied with their own life show higher tax morale. We also provide evidence on the roles played by confidence in government and people's cultural orientation in shaping the relationship between life satisfaction and tax morale. Our findings support the idea that implementing alternative policies that, directly or indirectly, increase tax morale could be politically relevant for helping governments mobilize adequate resources from taxation, given that tax evasion prosecution is far from perfect.

This paper examines the effects of economic downturns on regional inequalities. In a sample of 25 OECD countries for 1990–2014 period, we show that economic downturns are associated with a significant and long-lasting reduction in regional inequalities. Expansionary fiscal policy as well as higher share of the European development (cohesion) funds facilitate the response of lagging regions to negative nation-wide shocks, contributing to further stimulate the reduction in regional disparities. Additional evidence suggests that the effect of downturns tends to be larger in economies with a higher initial level of regional disparities in unemployment and human capital endowment.

Major epidemics of the last two decades (SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika) have been followed by increases in inequality (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2020). In this paper, we show that the extent of fiscal consolidation in the years following the onset of these pandemics has played an important role in determining the extent of the increase in inequality. Episodes marked by extreme austerity—measured using either the government’s fiscal balance, health expenditures or redistribution—have been associated with an increase in the Gini measure of inequality three times as large as in episodes where fiscal policy has been more supportive. We survey the evidence thus far on the distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggests that inequality is likely to increase in the absence of strong policy actions. We review the case made by many observers (IMF 2020; Stiglitz 2020; Sandbu 2020b) that fiscal support should not be withdrawn prematurely despite understandable concerns about high public debt-to-GDP ratios.

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on tourism flows is without precedent in terms of speed and severity. In this paper, we try to infer a possible future scenario for the tourism sector, evaluating the medium-term effects of past pandemics on tourist arrivals. We find that pandemics lead to a persistent decline in tourist arrivals, with the effects being larger in developing and emerging countries. Interestingly, the effects are heterogeneous across countries and episodes, and depend on several economic conditions such as the overall health system performance, the severity of the shock, and the uncertainty induced by the pandemic event.

This paper analyzes alternative channels of adjustment to nominal exchange rate flexibility in response to shocks faced by countries and regions that are part of a monetary union. Over our full sample period of analysis (1977-2018), the results suggest a dominant role of interstate migration as an adjustment channel to labor demand shocks for the United States. In contrast, European countries tend to adjust to negative labor demand shocks mainly through changes in labor force participation and unemployment. Labor mobility is lower in the euro area, regardless of whether one is looking at cross-country migration or within-country mobility. Price flexibility is more important as a shock absorber to labor demand shocks in the EMU compared to the United States. We also document that risk-sharing mechanisms have been, on average, more effective in smoothing income fluctuations in the United States than in the EMU. The strength of these channels, however, has changed over time both for the EMU and in the United States. In particular, the results suggest that the pattern of regional adjustments to shocks in EMU and the United States is moving closer, partly because of strengthening of adjustment channels in the EMU and partly because of weakening of these channels in the United States.

This article aims at investigating the tourism markets’ convergence hypothesis across Italy’s 20 major source markets. To reach our goal, we use monthly data of tourist arrivals and overnights over the period 2008–2018 and the time-varying factor model developed by Phillips and Sul (2007, 2009). Our findings suggest the absence of full (absolute) convergence, leading us to accept the hypothesis of club convergence. We show that the traditionally more important source markets have a tendency to persist, while Asian countries show heterogeneous behaviour. Furthermore, the relative decline in the contribution to total arrivals and overnights of several international source markets calls for a reconsideration of the promotional strategies to stimulate inbound tourism from these countries.

Before the outbreak of the Great Recession, considerable attention was devoted to what makes a region successful, and why some regions grow faster than others, but researchers often overlooked how regions react to shocks and why this happens in a heterogeneous way. Furthermore, the classic literature on regional inequalities has mainly focused on the long-term relationship between economic growth and regional disparities and on the role of labor mobility, sometimes also as a mechanism of adjustment to labor demand idiosyncratic shocks. This literature trend has reversed since 2008, when investigation of the heterogeneous impact of shocks across areas became prominent in regional studies because also addressed was the issue of regional resilience. Therefore, also the discussion on the asymmetric effects of macroeconomic policies, which was not a major concern in recent decades, has suddenly reemerged. Within-country disparities indeed increased during the 1980s, reflecting gains from economic concentration in some regions and relative stagnation in others; but they intensified during the global financial crisis of 2008, therefore calling for new ideas to support policy decisions. Similarly, the processes of European integration and reducing interregional disparities may have been severely jeopardised by the Great Recession, as perceived by many analysts just after the outbreak of the crisis. In the new context, market processes and policies that are supposed to spread prosperity and increase cohesion are not necessarily effective (Iammarino et al., 2019). Moreover, it is increasingly recognized that the factors determining regional performance, and therefore regional disparities, do not reside only in each region’s endogenous characteristics; they are also associated with some pervasive peculiarities of the national economy and its overall performance (Camagni, Capello, 2010). These considerations call for a revisitation of an old area of research devoted to the analysis of the interplay among macro and territorial forces in the dynamics of regional economies. Though studies on regional business cycles have a long tradition (Vining, 1946), this topic has often been marginalized by theoretical and empirical research in regional science and regional economics. On the policy side, macroeconomists have often neglected to investigate the regional shocks of macroeconomic intervention. Regional economists have similarly discounted the significance of national shocks (both exogenous and policy determined) and very rarely have given the due importance to the evolution of national trends. In Italy, one of the first attempts to consider the regional effect of macroeconomic policies was the study by Brancati (1985). Since then, very few scholars have addressed the problem, with some exceptions (Molle, Cappellin, 1988; Camagni, Capello, 2010; 2015). This paper surveys the recent approaches adopted to study regional disparities as related not only to the process of economic growth but also to economic downturns. Starting from the analysis of the relationship between national business cycles and idiosyncratic regional shocks, we discuss the role of macroeconomic policies and dynamics in affecting, through the impact on specific local assets, the process of (unequal) long-run regional growth as well as short-run resilience to economic shocks.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the well-being dynamics across European countries during the Great Recession and to investigate the potential role of the quality of formal institutions in mitigating the negative effect of the economic downturn. This study uses the club convergence methodology by Phillips and Sul (2007; 2009) to group EU-28 countries that present similar features in terms of well-being during the period 2005-2017. The study also applies probit models to investigate the potential role of several social and institutional characteristics that are supposed to affect subjective well-being levels. The results show the existence of a “well-being gap” among European countries. The economic downturn started in 2008 has impacted the perceived well-being more in low-income and low-growth countries (less developed transition and Southern countries), than in high-income and more developed transition countries. The study also shows that countries that present well-functioning institutional systems and, more in general, good institutional performances show higher life satisfaction levels and tend to be more resilient to the negative effects generated by the economic shock.

This paper provides evidence that financial globalization—liberalization of the capital account—makes income distribution more uneven by raising the share of income that goes to the richest income deciles. We also offer evidence that changes in domestic fiscal policies in the aftermath of financial globalization are one channel through which these distributional effects could occur. Specifically, we show that episodes of capital account liberalization are followed by greater fiscal consolidation and reduced fiscal redistribution, both of which lead to increased inequality.

This paper provides an empirical re-assessment of the regional effects of monetary policy in the U.S. We use the narrative series of Romer and Romer (2004) as a measure of monetary policy shocks and impulse response functions estimated directly from a single equation spatial model. We find that monetary policy tightening leads to a persistent decrease in regional real personal income and employment, with asymmetric effects across regions that are magnified by spatial spillovers. The magnitude of the effects depends on the period under analysis and on the direction of the monetary policy shock. We also provide evidence of the existence of the interest rate and the housing market channels, although there is weak support for the presence of the credit channels at the regional level.

The paper aims at investigating the impact of the Great Recession on per capita GDP convergence process across European regions and countries. Using the time‐varying factor model developed by Phillips and Sul for the period 2000–2015 and two different merging procedures to identify clubs, we provide evidence of the diverging impact of the Great Recession “between” the higher and the lower convergence clubs at both regional and country levels as well as of the strengthening of the convergence process “within” most clubs. In addition, we add further evidence to the common belief of a “multi‐speed” Europe by contrasting Eastern European countries' and regions' behavior vis‐à‐vis original European members' one, and by identifying the factors that affect club membership and resilience to the recent economic downturn. We find that the membership in the higher clubs and resilience to the Great Recession are positively affected by the presence of several local‐specific factors and macroeconomic characteristics.

This paper assesses the employment resilience of 202 European regions to the Great Recession by investigating the role of regional competitiveness. By using the regional shift component derived from a multiple bases shift–share analysis of employment change as a measure of regional endogenous employment growth, we show that pre‐crisis regional competitiveness determinants are associated with positive performances during the crisis period. However, the variables considered explain well the different vulnerability of the economies, but less convincingly the ability to recover. Taking into account the spatial interactions among regions, results are confirmed and allow us to identify spillover effects.

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks across regions. Using a measure of unanticipated changes in the Fed's policy rates over the period 1969Q3–2008Q4 and a local projection method extended to account for spatial effects, we find that monetary policy tightening leads to a long‐lasting decrease in states' real personal income, with asymmetric effects across states that are amplified by spatial spillovers. The paper then investigates the role played by several transmission channels finding larger contractionary effects of monetary policy tightening in states with higher manufacturing share, smaller firms, smaller banks and higher house prices.

The purpose of this paper is to verifying the economic resilience of islands and, in particular, the role of the tourism sector in the reaction to the most recent economic crisis. The analysis concerns insular contexts, such as the greater island regions in the Mediterranean basin. Static and dynamic panel data techniques are used for a sample of 13 island economies over a period of 16 years. Results show that the growth factors for regional islands are similar to the ones usually considered for other regions, but the tourism-led growth hypothesis is highly supported. Tourism demand more than supply plays a role together with accessibility. The crisis has reduced the importance of tourism supply, while tourism demand and accessibility have remained crucial for growth together with other traditional engines of growth.

This paper introduces package ConvergenceClubs, which implements functions to perform the Phillips and Sul (2007, 2009) club convergence clustering procedure in a simple and reproducible manner. The approach proposed by Phillips and Sul to analyse the convergence patterns of groups of economies is formulated as a nonlinear time varying factor model that allows for different time paths as well as individual heterogeneity. Unlike other approaches in which economies are grouped a priori, it also allows the endogenous determination of convergence clubs. The algorithm, usage, and implementation details are discussed.

Gli  alti  livelli  di  indebitamento  pubblico  registrati  dai  paesi  europei,  ed  eredi-tà della crisi fi nanziaria del 2008 prima, di quella dei debiti sovrani poi, e più recentemente  della  crisi  pandemica,  sollevano  non  pochi  interrogativi  circa  il  modo di conciliare il pressante obiettivo di risanamento fi scale, che richiede l’a-dozione da parte dei governi nazionali di misure di austerity che tipicamente ac-crescono la diseguaglianza nella distribuzione del reddito, con quello sottostante le politiche di coesione europee di ridurre le disparità di sviluppo fra le regioni degli  Stati  membri  e  rafforzare  la  coesione  economica.  Dopo  aver  passato  in  rassegna i contributi esistenti in letteratura che si occupano di valutare gli effetti regionali delle politiche di coesione e di consolidamento fi scale, si presentano i risultati di un esercizio empirico fi nalizzato a valutare se, ed in che misura, le politiche di coesione sostenute dall’Unione Europea contribuiscano ad alleviare gli effetti delle politiche di consolidamento fi scale sulla disuguaglianza di red-dito regionale. L’analisi è condotta con riferimento a dodici paesi europei (per un totale di 162 regioni) e su un orizzonte temporale di circa 5 lustri. I risultati indicano  che  le  misure  di  austerity  attuate  dai  governi  nazionali  acuiscono  le  divergenze regionali nel medio termine. Tuttavia, tali effetti vengono attenuati in uno scenario in cui la spesa relativa ai fondi strutturali, e specifi catamente per i fondi europei di sviluppo regionale (cd. FESR), è suffi cientemente alta e quando la qualità delle istituzioni di governo regionali è elevata.

This paper examines the regional effects of public spending on Active Labor Market polices (ALMPs). Using an unbalanced sample of 308 regions belonging to 29 OECD Economies for the period 1995-2011, we show that discretionary increases in public spending on active labor market policies at the national level have statistically significant short- and medium-term effect in reducing regional unemployment rate, while raising regional output. These effects tend to be larger during periods of low GDP growth, and when complemented by a larger share of cohesion fund expenditures.

Il contributo illustra le difformità di crescita esistenti tra le economie insulari e le altre economie regionali appartenenti agli stessi paesi, prestando particolare attenzione alla resilienza al periodo di crisi. I risultati dell’analisi confermano l’ipotesi di fondo che vi sia una maggiore rilevanza per le variabili legate alla domanda e all’offerta turistica nei processi di crescita delle isole e mostrano altresì l’importanza di altre variabili (quali le economie di agglomerazione e l’apertura commerciale). Sebbene tutte le determinanti della crescita siano state fortemente influenzate dalla Grande Recessione, questa sembra avere generato un più ridotto impatto negativo sulla crescita nelle isole nel caso della domanda turistica, delle economie di agglomerazione e dell’apertura commerciale. Tali variabili, acquistano dunque un ruolo rilevante anche nei processi di resilienza di queste economie regionali.

In questo lavoro ci si propone di identificare i fattori di natura territoriale che facilitano la capacità di resistenza alla crisi e la possibilità di resilienza dei sistemi economici, con particolare riferimento a quelli regionali. In economia, il concetto di resilienza riguarda l'abilità di un'area di mantenersi o ritornare al percorso di crescita iniziale in presenza di uno shock di natura esogena. L'analisi prende spunto dalle risultanze di alcune indagini empiriche svolte dagli autori negli ultimi anni (Mazzola ed altri, 2018, Lo Cascio ed altri, 2018, Furceri ed altri, 2016, Mazzola e Pizzuto, 2017) per evidenziare: 1) quali siano i fattori territoriali che hanno influenza sul processo di crescita a livello regionale in un periodo di tempo sufficientemente lungo da includere la recente crisi economica; 2) come sia cambiato il ruolo di questi fattori nel periodo della Grande Recessione; 3) quali siano le implicazioni di politica economica per stimolare la resilienza a livello regionale e locale sulla base delle suddette analisi. Il saggio si snoda attraverso diversi livelli territoriali (regionale, provinciale) e analizza in particolar modo la crescita di più variabili di performance e un vasto insieme di determinanti ai diversi livelli. Particolare attenzione viene rivolta alla natura degli elementi del capitale territoriale (pubblico/privata, materiale/non materiale). In esso si evidenzia anche l'importanza degli effetti spaziali su questo processo, in particolar modo quando si scende a livello sub-regionale. A livello sub-regionale, ignorare le esternalità spaziali può portare a valutazioni errate. Per analizzare queste tematiche occorre utilizzare tecniche di econometria spaziale. Lo scopo è anche quello di distinguere tra gli effetti diretti e quelli indiretti, dovuti agli spillovers, sia tra regioni contigue (spillovers locali) che tra tutte le unità territoriali del sistema economico nazionale (spillovers globali).

This paper estimates the effects of fiscal expenditure consolidations on the entire distribution of public debt-to-GDP for an unbalanced sample of 192 countries over the period 1991-2021. Employing panel location-scale models, we show that government expenditure significantly lower the location (average) of the future debt-to-GDP distribution and its scale (variance), thus also implying a reduction in the uncertainty surrounding public debt. Consequently, we uncover a downward sloping trend in the effects of government expenditure consolidations across the quantiles of the debt-to-GDP distribution. These effects persist up to a 4-year forecast horizon, with the highest reduction occurring on the right tail of the debt-to-GDP distribution, defined as debt-at-risk. We also show that fiscal expenditure consolidations are more effective in reducing debt-to-GDP when the debt levels are higher and when countries adopt a fiscal rule.

This paper investigates the role of informality in affecting the magnitude of the public expenditure multiplier in a panel of 142 countries, using the local projections method. We find a strong negative relationship between the degree of informality and the size of the multiplier. This result holds irrespective of the level of economic development and institutional quality and is robust to additional country characteristics such as trade and financial openness and exchange rate regime. In a two-sector New-Keynesian model, we rationalize this result by showing that fiscal shocks raise the relative price of official goods, thereby shifting demand towards the informal sector. This reallocation effect increases with the level of informality, because a larger informal sector is associated with a stronger appreciation of relative prices in response to fiscal shocks, and thus reduces the multiplier.

This paper investigates the effect of Climate Change Policies (CCPs) on green innovation, for a sample of 40 advanced and emerging market economies and 5 economic sectors, during the period 2000-2021. Our results suggest that CCPs increase green patents, with the effect increasing gradually over time. The effect is larger for non-market-based policies—such as R&D subsidies—and technology-support instruments, in countries with greater competitiveness and during periods of stronger economic activity—that is, higher GDP growth, lower uncertainty and financial stress. The results based on a difference-in-differences approach suggest that the positive effect of stricter CCPs on green innovation is stronger in sectors with limited financial constraints.

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 5 million lives thus far. This grim figure would have been higher still without the strong and timely fiscal support provided by governments around the globe, including support for health sector and the development and deployment of vaccines. The IMF has noted that “in 2020, fiscal policy proved its worth. The increasing public debt in 2020 was fully justified by the need to respond to COVID 19 and its economic, social, and financial consequences” (Gaspar, 2021). How to keep debt sustainable is becoming a policy imperative, made all the more challenging by the lingering effects of the pandemic, particularly on low-income groups. In this article we summarize our recent work on the distributional effects of past major epidemics in this century prior to COVID-19 and the role that fiscal support played in mitigating these effects (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2021a; 2021b). The policy message is that more inclusive and targeted fiscal policies are needed in coming years if governments wish to achieve public debt sustainability without exacerbating inequality.  

This paper provides evidence on the impact of major epidemics from the past two decades on income distribution. The pandemics in our sample, even though much smaller in scale than COVID-19, have led to increases in the Gini coefficient, raised the income share of higher-income deciles, and lowered the employment-to-population ratio for those with basic education compared to those with higher education. We provide some evidence that the distributional consequences from the current pandemic may be larger than those flowing from the historical pandemics in our sample, and larger than those following typical recessions and financial crises.

Major epidemics of the last two decades (SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika) have been followed by increases in inequality (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2020). In this paper, we show that the extent of fiscal consolidation in the years following the onset of these pandemics has played an important role in determining the extent of the increase in inequality. Episodes marked by extreme austerity—measured using either the government’s fiscal balance, health expenditures or redistribution—have been associated with an increase in the Gini measure of inequality three times as large as in episodes where fiscal policy has been more supportive. We survey the evidence thus far on the distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggests that inequality is likely to increase in the absence of strong policy actions. We review the case made by many observers (IMF 2020; Stiglitz 2020; Sandbu 2020b) that fiscal support should not be withdrawn prematurely despite understandable concerns about high public debt-to-GDP ratios.

COVID-19 has had a disruptive economic impact in 2020, but how long its impact will persist remains unclear. We offer a prognosis based on an analysis of the effects of five previous major epidemics in this century. We find that these pandemics led to significant and persistent reductions in disposable income, along with increases in unemployment, income inequality and public debt-to-GDP ratios. Energy use and CO2 emissions dropped, but mostly because of the persistent decline in the level of economic activity rather than structural changes in the energy sector. Applying our empirical estimates to project the impact of COVID-19, we foresee significant scarring in economic performance and income distribution through 2025, which be associated with an increase in poverty of about 75 million people. Policy responses more effective than those in the past would be required to forestall these outcomes.