This paper investigates the relation between growth forecast errors and planned fiscal consolidation during the crisis. We find that, in advanced economies, stronger planned fiscal consolidation has ...been associated with lower growth than expected. The relation is particularly strong, both statistically and economically, early in the crisis. A natural interpretation is that fiscal multipliers were substantially higher than implicitly assumed by forecasters. The weaker relation in more recent years may in part reflect learning by forecasters and in part smaller multipliers than in the early years of the crisis. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Okun’s Law BALL, LAURENCE; LEIGH, DANIEL; LOUNGANI, PRAKASH
Journal of money, credit and banking,
October 2017, Letnik:
49, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper asks how well Okun’s Law fits short-run unemployment movements in the United States since 1948 and in 20 advanced economies since 1980.We find that Okun’s Lawis a strong relationship in ...most countries, and one that is fairly stable over time. Accounts of breakdowns in the Law, such as the emergence of “jobless recoveries,” are flawed or exaggerated. We also find that the coefficient in the relationship—the effect of a 1% change in output on the unemployment rate—varies substantially across countries. This variation is partly explained by idiosyncratic features of national labor markets, but it is not related to differences in employment protection legislation.
Purpose
Low-carbon emissions are usually related to hydropower energy, making it an attractive option for nations with hydropower potential as it enables them to meet increasing electricity demand ...without relying on burning fossil fuels. In fact, the new wave of hydropower plant construction is occurring mainly in tropical areas where an additional environmental impact must be considered: biogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to the degradation of biogenic carbon in reservoirs. Peru is planning to install up to 2000 MW in hydropower until 2021, but the input and output flows, as well as the environmental impacts that these generate, have not been explored. Hence, a set of three hydropower plants built in the past decade located in the Peruvian Andes were analyzed from a life cycle perspective. The main objective of the study is to generate detailed life cycle inventories for each of these three hydropower plants with the aim of obtaining specific information for current conditions in Peru.
Methods
The life cycle assessment methodology was applied to compute the environmental impacts. Data collection was based mainly on primary data obtained directly from the hydropower companies, although biogenic emissions were modeled considering local net primary productivity conditions and other site-specific conditions. Although the calculation of GHG emissions related to hydropower plants was a priority, considering the important policy implications of decarbonizing the Peruvian electricity grid, other environmental categories, such as eutrophication or the depletion of abiotic resources, were also considered. The IPCC method was used to calculate GHG emissions, whereas a set of eight additional impact categories were computed using the ReCiPe
2016
method.
Results and discussion
Results show that GHG emissions per unit of electricity generated were in the lower range of emissions observed in the literature, in all three cases below 3 g CO
2
eq/kWh. Biogenic emissions represented less than 5% of the total GHG emissions despite their location in a tropical nation, due to the arid conditions of the landscape in the Andean Highlands, as well as the mild temperatures that are present in the reservoirs. In terms of stratospheric ozone depletion, a GHG with ozone depletion properties, N
2
O, was the main source of impact.
Conclusions
The results are intended to be of utility for an array of applications, including relevance in decision-making in the energy sector and policy-making at a national level, considering the implications in terms of meeting the nationally determined contributions to mitigate climate change in the frame of the Treaty of Paris.
Purpose
Road construction and transportation generate significant environmental impacts. Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the environmental burdens produced throughout the different ...stages of road development: construction, maintenance, traffic, and end-of-life. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was used as an environmental management methodology to determine the impacts associated with a 22.4 km stretch of the South Pan-American (PS) highway in the province of Lima, Peru, one of the main access routes for traffic and goods entering Lima, located in a hyper-arid area parallel to the Pacific Ocean.
Methods
Life cycle modeling included the site-specific estimation of particulate matter emissions due to tire abrasion, brake lining, and road surface dust. In addition, different modeling options for combustion emissions for vehicles were considered. For this, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis were undertaken considering different emission standards and current vehicle fleet characteristics. The impact assessment stage included the calculation of climate change emissions, as well as air quality and abiotic depletion impact categories.
Results and discussion
Results demonstrate that environmental impacts are mainly attributable to traffic, representing in all impact categories assessed over 97% of burdens. The sensitivity analysis suggests that the use of secondary data from commonly used life cycle databases is a good proxy for the estimation of global warming potential impacts in the transport sector. However, for air quality categories, important variability was detected based on modeling assumptions
.
Conclusions
This study intends to serve as a reference for the life cycle modeling of controlled access highways in developing countries, particularly in hyper-arid or desert areas.
I investigate how monetary policy can avoid a deflationary slump when policy rates are near zero by studying interest rate policy during Japan's "Lost Decade." Estimation results suggest that the ...Bank of Japan's interest rate policy fits a conventional reaction function with an inflation target near 1 %. The disapointing economic performance thus seems primarily due to adverse economic shocks rather than extraordinary policy errors. Also, counterfactual policy simulations suggest that simply raising the inflation target would not have substantially improved performance. However, pricelevel targeting or combining a higher inflation target with an aggressive output response would have achieved superior stabilization results.
The ability to sense mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli is critical to normal physiology and the perception of pain. Contact with noxious stimuli triggers a complex series of events that ...initiate innate protective mechanisms designed to minimize or avoid injury. Extreme temperatures, mechanical stress, and chemical irritants are detected by specific ion channels and receptors clustered on the terminals of nociceptive sensory nerve fibers and transduced into electrical information. Propagation of these signals, from distant sites in the body to the spinal cord and the higher processing centers of the brain, is also orchestrated by distinct groups of ion channels. Since their identification in 1995, evidence has emerged to support roles for K2P channels at each step along this pathway, as receptors for physiological and noxious stimuli, and as determinants of nociceptor excitability and conductivity. In addition, the many subtypes of K2P channels expressed in somatosensory neurons are also implicated in mediating the effects of volatile, general anesthetics on the central and peripheral nervous systems. Here, I offer a critical review of the existing data supporting these attributes of K2P channel function and discuss how diverse regulatory mechanisms that control the activity of K2P channels act to govern the operation of nociceptors.
There is no consensus on how strongly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has stimulated U.S. private fixed investment. Some argue that the business tax provisions spurred investment by cutting the cost ...of capital. Others see the TCJA primarily as a windfall for shareholders. We find that U.S. business investment since 2017 has grown strongly compared to pre-TCJA forecasts and that the overriding factor driving it has been the strength of expected aggregate demand. Investment has, so far, fallen short of predictions based on the postwar relation with tax cuts. Model simulations and firm-level data suggest that much of this weaker response reflects a lower sensitivity of investment to tax policy changes in the current environment of greater corporate market power. Economic policy uncertainty in 2018 played a relatively small role in dampening investment growth.
EXPANSIONARY AUSTERITY? INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE Guajardo, Jaime; Leigh, Daniel; Pescatori, Andrea
Journal of the European Economic Association,
August 2014, Letnik:
12, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper investigates the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in OECD economies. We examine contemporaneous policy documents to identify changes in fiscal policy ...motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to prospective economic conditions. Using this new dataset, our estimates suggest that fiscal consolidation has contractionary effects on private demand and GDP. By contrast, estimates based on conventional measures of the fiscal policy stance used in the literature support the expansionary fiscal contractions hypothesis but appear to be biased toward overstating expansionary effects.
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