A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

/pdf/education-at-a-glance-m5vl7o68j5.pdf

Education at a Glance

Introduction: Explaining the EU Political System PART I: GOVERNMENT Executive Politics Legislative Politics Judicial Politics PART II: POLITICS Public Opinion Democracy, Parties and Elections Interest Representation PART III: POLICY-MAKING Regulation of the Single Market Expenditure Policies Economic and Monetary Union Citizen Freedom and Security Policies Foreign Policies Conclusions: Rethinking the European Union Appendix: Decision-making Procedures of the European Union Bibliography

The political system of European Union

This paper explains the key factors that determine the output multiplier of government purchases in New Keynesian models, through a series of simple examples that can be solved analytically. Sticky prices or wages allow for larger multipliers than in a neoclassical model, though the size of the multiplier depends crucially on the monetary policy response. A multiplier well in excess of 1 is possible when monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound, and in this case welfare increases if government purchases expand to partially flll the output gap that arises from the inability to lower interest rates.

/pdf/simple-analytics-of-the-government-expenditure-multiplier-vrcp7y84f8.pdf

Simple Analytics of the Government Expenditure Multiplier

It is high time we rediscovered the role of the financial cycle in macroeconomics In the environment that has prevailed for at least three decades now, it is not possible to understand business fluctuations and the corresponding analytical and policy challenges without understanding the financial cycle This calls for a rethink of modelling strategies and for significant adjustments to macroeconomic policies This essay highlights the stylised empirical features of the financial cycle, conjectures as to what it may take to model it satisfactorily, and considers its policy implications In the discussion of policy, the essay pays special attention to the bust phase, which is less well explored and raises much more controversial issues

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2195976_code456443.pdf?abstractid=2195976&mirid=1

The Financial Cycle and Macroeconomics: What Have We Learnt?

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, with the relation being 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 reflect in part learning by forecasters and in part smaller multipliers than in the early years of the crisis.

/pdf/growth-forecast-errors-and-fiscal-multipliers-3nwicszm2s.pdf

Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers

QUEST was designed to analyse the economies in the Member States of the European Union and their interaction with the rest of the world. The paper presents a new version of the QUEST model which is now considerably modified with respect to its theoretical structure. It first presents a model description for the following sectors: household behaviour, firm behaviour and government. Then, it proposes the markets and prices equations. The second section contains standard simulations. It first considers monetary policy and fiscal policy shocks, then an example of a productivity shock.II/511/97-ENQUEST was designed to analyse the economies in the member states of the European Union and their interactions with the rest of the world, especially with the United States and Japan. The focus of the model is on the transmission of the effects of economic policy both on the domestic and the international economy. The model was primarily constructed to serve as a tool for policy simulation; less emphasis was put on its ability to serve as a forecasting tool. Given the wide coverage of the model it must necessarily be highly aggregated. A high degree of aggregation and foundation of the specification in current macroeconomic theory also helps in interpreting and understanding the results of the simulations. Finally simplicity also facilitates the solution of the model and reduces the time and memory requirements of the computer-simulations. The new model contains structural models for the EU member states, the US and Japan and distinguishes 10 additional countries/regions in trade feedback models in order to model trade interactions with the rest of the world.Compared to the former version of the QUEST model, which was presented in European Economy No. 47 (1991), the new model is now considerably modified with respect to its theoretical structure. The previous version of QUEST was deeply rooted in the Keynesian tradition of econometric model building, strongly stressing the demand side of the economy and modelling consumer and investment behaviour in a backward looking fashion. In the new version an attempt was made to base the behavioural equations more strongly on principles of dynamic optimisation of private households and firms. That makes the model substantially more forward looking. Also the supply side is now more explicitly modelled. The present model is also closed with respect to stock-flow interactions. Those stock variables which can be identified on a macroeconomic level such as physical capital, net foreign assets, money and government debt are endogenously determined and wealth effects are allowed to influence savings, production and investment decisions of private households, firms and the government. Moreover, financial linkages between national economies are now more explicitly modelled. In the current version it is assumed that assets determined in different currencies are perfect substitutes - up to an exogenous risk premium. Consistent modelling of international trade and financial linkages also require that at each instant two adding-up constraints hold: trade balances and net foreign asset positions sum to zero. Also the long run properties of the model are now systematically explored.Apart from simulations related to the Commission's short and medium term projections, the model has been intensively used to analyse the impact of the Maastricht criteria on growth and employment and the long run effects of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms in Europe (e.g. Bayar et al., 1997a). Related to this, the model was used to study the impact of monetary policy on the success of government expenditure cuts (Roeger and in 't Veld, 1997a), and the macroeconomic effects of various tax reforms (Roeger and in 't Veld, 1997b) and VAT harmonisation (Bayar, Roeger and in 't Veld, 1997). The model has also been used to assess the employment and growth effects of the Trans European Transport Networks (European Commission, 1996), while the models for Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have been used to look at the macroeconomic effects of the Structural Funds (Roeger, 1996b).

QUEST II. A Multi-Country Business Cycle and Growth Model

This paper develops a DSGE model for an open economy and estimates it on euro area data using Bayesian estimation techniques The model features nominal and real frictions, as well as financial frictions in the form of liquidity constrained households The model incorporates active monetary and fiscal policy rules (for government consumption, investment, transfers and wage taxes) and can be used to analyse the effectiveness of stabilisation policies To capture the unit root character of macroeconomic time-series we allow for stochastic trend in TFP, but instead of filtering data prior to estimation, we estimate the model in growth rates and stationary nominal ratios

QUEST III: an estimated DSGE model of the euro area with fiscal and monetary policy

This paper analyses the characteristics of episodes of fiscal consolidation in the EU exhibiting non-Keynesian features, i.e., followed by an improved growth performance. Roughly half of the episodes of fiscal consolidations that have been undertaken in the EU in the last 30 years have been followed by higher growth. Probit regressions indicate that the consolidations that turned out to be expansionary were more likely started in periods with output below potential and based on expenditure cuts rather than on tax increases. These results appear quite robust with respect to the criteria used to identify the consolidation episodes and to classify such episodes as expansionary.

Non-Keynesian Fiscal Adjustments? A Close Look at Expansionary Fiscal Consolidations in the EU

This paper analyses non-Keynesian effects in fiscal consolidations in the EU. The analysis is carried out bothÂ ex-post, i.e. by looking at the emergence of expansionary consolidations in the past and at their characteristics, and ex-ante, i.e. by simulating with the European Commission QUEST model under which conditions public finance consolidation would exhibit non-Keynesian effects in the current EMU context.

Can fiscal consolidations be expansionary in the EU? Ex-post evidence and ex-ante analysis

https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/events/2010/20100723_advances_in_international_macroeconomics/p1-3_in_tveld_roeger_raciborski_ratto_en.pdf

Jan in 't Veld

Papers

QUEST II. A Multi-Country Business Cycle and Growth Model

QUEST III: an estimated DSGE model of the euro area with fiscal and monetary policy

Non-Keynesian Fiscal Adjustments? A Close Look at Expansionary Fiscal Consolidations in the EU

Can fiscal consolidations be expansionary in the EU? Ex-post evidence and ex-ante analysis

The recent boom–bust cycle: The relative contribution of capital flows, credit supply and asset bubbles