Governments are increasingly confronted with the task of preserving the positive effects of increased global integration while also managing their manifold side effects. This column looks at the effects of globalisation on inflation and financial stability and the role for central banks. It concludes that central banks are far from immune from the forces of globalisation and should continue to evolve and reassess their role and instruments in a changing world.
Opinion polls reveal that Europeans are greatly concerned about the economic consequences of advanced technologies, but our understanding of this relationship is still incomplete. This column assesses the impact of one such technology – industrial robots – on employment in Europe over the last two decades. Combining industry-level data on employment with data on robot adoption, it finds that robot use is linked to a small but significant increase in employment. Contrary to some previous studies, it does not find evidence of robots reducing the share of low-skill workers across Europe.
In 2019 the EU published its directive on bankruptcy reform, which national parliaments must now consider. This column argues the Relative Priority Rule that the reforms propose is unfair, would reduce financial stability, and may lead to a regulatory race to the bottom. The rule would aggravate risk-taking because returns would be captured by shareholders while losses would be borne by unsecured creditors.
Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in expanding access to college education in the US. This column examines how changes in college access in the US at the end of the 20th century affected schooling and health-related behaviours and outcomes. Increased access to two-year college, in particular, has had a positive impact on health-related behaviours such as smoking or exercising for some sub-populations. There is also some evidence that more years of schooling improved health outcomes, although more research is needed to understand the longer-term effects.
Governments of modern states need to convince men and women to fight and possibly to die for their country, putting aside their ‘selfish’ instinct to stay alive. This column examines whether welfare spending under Roosevelt’s New Deal boosted US patriotism during WWII. It finds that higher welfare spending prior to 1940 is positively correlated with greater patriotism, as measured by war bond purchases, volunteering for the US Army, and exceptionally brave acts in battle. The findings suggest that when the federal government looks out for its citizens’ needs, men and women who benefit repay the largesse by becoming more patriotic.
Other Recent Columns:
- The effects of college education on health
- How Roosevelt’s welfare programmes made America great again
- Former Communist Party membership and present-day entrepreneurship
- Populism, political risk and the economy
- Leveraging posterity’s prosperity
- The euro: A transfer union from the start
- Women as policymakers do make a difference
- Separatism and the role of regional resources
- Political risk and exchange rates: The lessons of Brexit
- Bilateral trade imbalances: Hidden causes and hidden effects
- Beverage market disruptions and their trade consequences
- Place-based payroll taxes and regional employment
- The promise of automated historical data linkage
- How bad news can harm economic development
- Foreign exchange swaps: Hidden debt, lurking vulnerability
- The wage–employment nexus: A tale of persistence
- From fog to smog: The value of pollution information
- The costs of cascading trade protection
- How to deal with Big Tech mergers
- Auto-enrollment changes who is a passive saver
Most Read
Vox eBooks
Vox Talks
Events
-
13 - 13 March 2020 / London / The UK Network for Environmental Economists (UKNEE)
-
20 - 20 March 2020 / University of Paris Nanterre / EconomiX-CNRS and the Doctoral School EOS (Université Paris Ouest - Nanterre La Défense), CeReFiM (University of Namur), LFIN (Université Catholique de Louvain-Louvain School of Management) and LEO (Université d'Orléans)
-
25 - 26 March 2020 / London, United Kingdom / Bank of England, CEPR and Imperial College
-
27 - 27 March 2020 / San Francisco / Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
-
1 - 2 April 2020 / University of Orléans (France) / LEO CNRS - University of Orléans (France)
