Recent economische ontwikkelingen in Vlaanderen (Oktober 09)

Lees het volledige rapport van de Studiedienst van de Vlaamse Regering hier.

Will the current economic crisis lead to more retirements?

Since the crisis began, the economy has shed millions of jobs. This column explains how stock, housing, and labour market fluctuations affect retirement decisions. While wealthier workers will delay retirement, a larger number of workers will be forced into retirement because of their inability to find new jobs. This increased involuntary retirement will likely exceed any work-seeking effect of diminished stock market wealth by 50%.

Read this article from C.C. Coile and P.B.Levine on Vox.eu here.

Disincentives from Health Reform

Read this article on Greg Mankiw's blog here.

Design and effectiveness of fiscal-stimulus programmes

The recent global recession has made the efficacy of fiscal-stimulus packages one of the most prominent policy debates in economics today. This column finds that the multiplier of defence spending falls in a range of 0.6 to 0.8 and argues that non-defence multipliers are unlikely to be larger. It says we should be sceptical when policymakers claim government-spending multipliers in excess of one and suggests tax cuts may be preferable to spending increases.

Read the full article from R. Barro and C. Redlick on Vox.eu here.