Must-Reads Summer 2018

Working Paper

How big is China’s digital economy?

The rise of influential Chinese digital giants, including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi has shown the world that China is a global leader in digital innovation and it is not surprising that China has started to influence the global digital market. But is China exploiting its full potential in this area? To answer this question, the authors assess how big China’s digital economy is relative to the rest of its economy, and how China performs compared to the rest of the world.

By: Alicia García-Herrero and Jianwei Xu Topic: Global economy and trade Date: May 17, 2018

Policy Contribution

Financial literacy and inclusive growth in the European Union

Financial literacy is financial education, such as basic economics, statistics and numeracy skills combined with the ability to employ these skills in making financial decisions. As more and more households are asked to make their own decisions about such issues, financial illiteracy can become a serious threat to their life-time welfare. The authors of this paper explain why financial literacy matters and suggest, in light of their findings, some policy recommendations.

By: Uuriintuya Batsaikhan and Maria Demertzis Topic: Banking and capital markets, Macroeconomic policy Date: May 9, 2018

Working Paper

The impact of industrial robots on EU employment and wages: A local labour market approach

In theory, robots can directly displace workers from performing specific tasks (displacement effect). But they can also expand labour demand through the efficiencies they bring to industrial production (productivity effect). This working paper adopts the local labour market equilibrium approach developed by Acemoglu and Restrepo to assess which effects dominate and the impact of robots on wage growth and employment rate in Europe.

By: Francesco Chiacchio, Georgios Petropoulos and David Pichler Topic: Digital economy and innovation Date: April 18, 2018

Policy Contribution

Are European firms falling behind in the global corporate research race?

The author looks at how concentrated corporate R&D is in Europe, compared with sales and employment. The US and China are more likely to produce new R&D leaders that take over some of the top positions from incumbent R&D leaders. How is the EU coping with technology shifts and creating the next generation of new leading firms?

By: Reinhilde Veugelers Topic: Digital economy and innovation Date: April 12, 2018

Policy Brief

Addressing Europe’s failure to clean up the transport sector

The European Union has the long-term vision to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 and it adopted in 2014 a binding 40 percent emissions reduction target to be achieved by 2030. Transport is therefore set to become the main obstacle to the achievement of the EU’s decarbonisation goals.

By: Simone Tagliapietra and Georg Zachmann Topic: Green economy Date: April 9, 2018

Blog Post

Why a good Brexit outcome matters (and it’s not just the economy, stupid!)

Uncertainty still reigns over the future shape of the EU-UK relationship, as Brexit negotiations rumble on. Though the two parties are parting ways, a more cooperative approach from both would greatly improve the longer-term economic and political prospects for all concerned

By: Maria Demertzis and Nicola Viegi Topic: Macroeconomic policy Date: February 22, 2018

Policy Contribution

Tales from a crisis: diverging narratives of the euro area

Who gets the blame for the crisis? How did narratives of the crisis develop since 2007? The authors of this paper tried to identify the key crisis-related topics in articles from four opinion-forming newspapers in the largest euro-area countries.

By: Henrik Müller, Gerret von Nordheim and Giuseppe Porcaro Topic: Macroeconomic policy Date: February 15, 2018

Blueprint

People on the move: migration and mobility in the European Union

Migration is one of the most divisive policy topics in today’s Europe. In this publication, the authors assess the immigration challenge that the EU faces, analyse public perceptions, map migration patterns in the EU and review the literature on the economic impact of immigration to reflect on immigration policies and the role of private institutions in fostering integration.

By: Uuriintuya Batsaikhan, Zsolt Darvas and Inês Goncalves Raposo Topic: Macroeconomic policy Date: January 22, 2018