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Empirical studies analyzing the determinants of U.S. presidential popularity have delivered quite inconclusive results concerning the role of economic variables by assuming linear relationships. We employ penalized spline smoothing in the context of semi-parametric additive mixed models and allow for flexible functional forms and thus possible non-linear effects for the economic determinants. By controlling for the well-known politically motivated covariables, we find strong evidence for non-linear and negative effects of unemployment, inflation, and government consumption on presidential approval. Additionally, we present new results in favor of non-parametric trivariate interaction effects between the macroeconomic covariables.

This paper analyzes the effects of short-time work (i.e., government subsidized working time reductions) on unemployment and output fluctuations. The central question is whether short-time work saves jobs in recessions. In our baseline scenario the rule based component of short-time work (i.e., due to the existence of the institution) stabilizes unemployment fluctuations by 15% and output fluctuations by 7%. Given the small share of short-time work expenses in terms of GDP, the stabilization effects are large compared to other instruments such as the income tax system. By contrast, discretionary short-time work interventions (i.e., rule changes) do not have any statistically significant effect on unemployment. These effects are based on a SVAR estimation,which uses an elasticity of the German establishment panel for identification purposes. The model shows that non-effects of discretionary interventions (i.e., 100% deadweight) may be due to their low persistence.

This open access book is an outcome of the EU's Horizon 2020 project 'Financial and Institutional Reforms for an Entrepreneurial Society' (FIRES). Building on historical, economic and legal analysis, and combining methods and data across disciplines, the authors provide policymakers, stakeholders and scholars with valuable new tools for assessing and improving Europe's entrepreneurial ecosystems. Then experts from Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom discuss tailored strategies for introducing entrepreneurial policy reforms in their respective countries.

This paper argues that the advent of body cameras with real-time, facial recognition technology may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment. As this technology is rapidly evolving, law and policy continues to grapple with proper implementation. This paper suggests that the courts will play an increasingly important role in making relevant constitutional determinations. Using recent Supreme Court case law, the paper surveys several ways in which courts may hold on the issue of body worn cameras and related technologies, depending on their approach.

Does economic uncertainty promote the implementation of structural reforms? We answer this question using one of the most exhaustive cross-country panel data set on reforms in six major areas and measuring economic uncertainty with stock market volatility. To address endogeneity concerns, we propose various identification strategies, instrumenting uncertainty with world shocks to volatility and with natural disasters, political coups and revolutions. Across all specifications, we find that uncertainty has a positive and significant effect on the adoption of reforms. This result is robust to the inclusion of a large number of controls, such as political variables, economic variables, crisis indicators, and a host of country, reform and time fixed effects.

For the academic audience, this paper presents the outcome of a well-identified, large change in the monetary policy rule from the lens of a standard New Keynesian model and asks whether the model properly captures the effects. For policymakers, it presents a cautionary tale of the dismal effects of ignoring basic macroeconomics. The Turkish monetary policy experiment of the past decade, stemming from a belief of the government that higher interest rates cause higher inflation, provides an unfortunately clean exogenous variance in the policy rule. The mandate to keep rates low, and the frequent policymaker turnover orchestrated by the government to enforce this, led to the Taylor principle not being satisfied and eventually a negative coefficient on inflation in the policy rule. In such an environment, was the exchange rate still a random walk? Was inflation anchored? Does the "standard model" suffice to explain the broad contours of macroeconomic outcomes in an emerging economy with large identifying variance in the policy rule? There are no surprises for students of open-economy macroeconomics; the answers are no, no, and yes.

Financial inclusion becomes a priority concern with governments in ASEAN countries such as reduce the lack of access for public to formal financial institutions. Moreover, there is an empirical gap of linkages between institutions and financial inclusion. Thus, the study aims to estimate the effect of institutions on dynamic financial inclusion. Three financial inclusion indicators are employed, namely: debit card ownership, credit card ownership, and domestic credit to GDP ratio. Institutional indicators consist of six indicators following world governance indicators. The research observations are about 88 consisting of cross-sections were eight of ASEAN countries and the time series was 2008-2018. Indeed, a dynamic panel data was employed. In general, the findings exhibit that FEM is the appropriate model under Hausman test. Specifically, debit card ownership and credit card ownership were determined by voice and accountability, and rule of law while domestic credit to GDP ratio was determined by some indicators of institutions such as voice and accountability, political stability, regulatory quality, and control of corruption. Hence, the policy implications were directed to improve the quality of institutions both country and ASEAN levels. The high quality of institutions will stimulate the acceleration and expansion of financial inclusion in ASEAN countries.

Facing the growing importance of institutions as a vital, or according to some, even a key determinant of economic growth and development, the authors of this study attempt to define and determine basic relations and mechanisms by which the institutional environment affects labor productivity. In addition, an analysis of institutions diversity and labor productivity was carried out in selected regions of the European Union. The findings of the analyses prompt to draw a conclusion that "good" institutional solutions have a significant impact on the development of labor productivity also at regional level by protecting property rights, lowering transaction costs, stimulating competition and improving the efficient functioning of the market mechanism.

Facing the growing importance of institutions as a vital, or according to some, even a key determinant of economic growth and development, the authors of this study attempt to define and determine basic relations and mechanisms by which the institutional environment affects labor productivity. In addition, an analysis of institutions diversity and labor productivity was carried out in selected regions of the European Union. The findings of the analyses prompt to draw a conclusion that "good" institutional solutions have a significant impact on the development of labor productivity also at regional level by protecting property rights, lowering transaction costs, stimulating competition and improving the efficient functioning of the market mechanism.

A large literature has found positive associations between economic freedom and income, growth, and a variety of other desirable outcomes. This paper surveys the literature that seeks to explain the causes of economic freedom. Some of the most consistent findings in this literature are that current levels of economic freedom are strongly correlated with past levels; freer countries have more difficulty continuing to improve their economic freedom; democracy and political freedom are positively associated with economic freedom; and inequality is negatively related. (JEL E02, E14, O17, O43, P1)

The European Model Rules for the Procedure of the future European Public Prosecutor's Office are the outcome of a research project carried out at the University of Luxemburg in the period February 2010 – March 2012 with the financing of the Hercule II Programme of the EU Commission and the co-financing of the University of Luxemburg. The Model Rules were elaborated by a group of academics and practitioners working under the coordination of Professor Katalin Ligeti. The aim of the research project was to elaborate a set of rules with a model character delineating the investigative and prosecutorial powers of a European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), the applicable procedural safeguards and the evidential standards.

The European Model Rules for the Procedure of the future European Public Prosecutor's Office are the outcome of a research project carried out at the University of Luxemburg in the period February 2010 – March 2012 with the financing of the Hercule II Programme of the EU Commission and the co-financing of the University of Luxemburg. The Model Rules were elaborated by a group of academics and practitioners working under the coordination of Professor Katalin Ligeti. The aim of the research project was to elaborate a set of rules with a model character delineating the investigative and prosecutorial powers of a European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), the applicable procedural safeguards and the evidential standards.

The presented study examines the juridical, socio-political and epistemological implications, caused by the insertion of the concept of organised crime into the European penal legislations, precisely the French and Greek ones. Firstly, the study concerns the process by which the preexistent legal notions concerning criminal participation and group-based offenses have gradually been replaced by an allegedly univocal notion of organised crime, as well as the consequences of this substitution for the concerned juridical systems. This study of the "sein" of contemporary policy towards organised crime, invites us to think also about its "sollen". The serious legal-dogmatic problems and the semantic entropy inherent to the concept, combined with the justified worries about the politico-philosophical orientations of contemporary criminal policy systems, lead us to rethink not only the utility of the juridicisation of a concept which is ontologically inappropriate for scientific treatment, but also the latent manichean tendencies behind this process; tendencies which, much more than organised crime itself, threaten the declared values of our societies and our justice systems.

This paper first searches for the drivers of the Greek depression in the aftermath of the 2007-8 global crisis and in turn looks for engines of sustained growth. We use a micro-founded macroeconomic model calibrated to Greece. Our simulations show that the adopted adjustment program (namely, the fiscal austerity mix combined with the fiscal and monetary bailouts by the EU, ECB and IMF), jointly with the observed deterioration in institutional quality (specifically, in the degree of protection of property rights) can explain most (around 22% of GDP) of the cumulative loss in GDP in the data (around 24% of GDP) between 2009 and 2016. In particular, the adjustment program can explain a fall of around 12%, while the deterioration in property rights accounts for another 10%. Counterfactual simulations, on the other hand, show that the cumulative output loss could have been around 9% only, if the country had followed a different fiscal policy mix; if the degree of product marker liberalization was closer to that in the core euro zone countries; and, above all, if institutional quality in Greece had simply remained at its pre-crisis level. On the other hand, we show that, in the absence of the official fiscal bailouts, the depression would be much deeper, while the accommodative role played by the quantitative policies of the ECB has been vital to the Greek economy.