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The labor market effects of the recent financial and economic crisis are rather heterogeneous across countries and regions. Such differences in labor market performance among industrialized countries are an issue of ongoing research. The objective of this paper is to analyse labor market disparities among European regions and to provide evidence on the factors behind these differences. Whereas previous research focused on effects of national labor market institutions, we also take structural characteristics of regions into account and investigate differences in labor demand responsiveness and their potential determinants. The data set covers the NUTS2 regions in the EU15 for the period 1980 to 2008. We apply an error correction model that is combined with a spatial modeling approach in order to account for interaction among neighboring labor markets. Our findings point to substantially distinct labor demand responses to changes in output and wages among European countries and regions. Moreover, the rate of adjustment to disequilibrium is subject to a signifcant variation across units of observation. Whereas evidence on the significance of region specific variables as explanatory factors is weak, labor market institutions, especially regulations that affect the determination of wages, explain an important fraction of the disparities. -- Regional labor markets ; labor demand ; institutions ; Europe ; error correction model

In the empirical analysis of panel data the Breusch–Pagan (BP) statistic has become a standard tool to infer on unobserved heterogeneity over the cross‐section. Put differently, the test statistic is central to discriminate between the pooled regression and the random effects model. Conditional versions of the test statistic have been provided to immunize inference on unobserved heterogeneity against random time effects or patterns of spatial error correlation. Panel data models with spatially correlated error terms are typically set out under the presumption of some known adjacency matrix parameterizing the correlation structure up to a scaling factor. This paper delivers a bootstrap scheme to generate critical values for the BP statistic allowing robust inference under misspecification of the adjacency matrix. Moreover, asymptotic results are derived for the case of a finite cross‐section and infinite time dimension. Finite sample simulations show that misspecification of spatial covariance features could lead to large size distortions, while the robust bootstrap procedure retains asymptotic validity.

AbstractIn this study we examine the impact of the European Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) on narratively identified fiscal adjustments whose prime focus is to reduce the budget deficit and compare the effects with those on the primary and the structural budget balance. The cross section of EU and non‐EU economies and the sample period 1980–2014 allow for an assessment of the SGP regarding its effectiveness, cyclicality, and the type of fiscal adjustments (tax hikes vs. spending cuts) as compared with counterfactual scenarios. Our findings indicate that the SGP has effectively boosted budget consolidation measures identified by means of the narrative approach, whereas it had no overall impact on the primary and an overall minor impact on the structural budget balance. However, the effectiveness of the SGP has varied considerably over time. All measures indicate that the SGP was particularly effective in the period after the introduction of the Euro, except for the 2 years following the financial crisis in 2008. We find no evidence that fiscal policy has become more procyclical under the SGP. Finally, fiscal consolidation under the SGP favors spending cuts, whereas the application of tax hikes shows no sizeable differences as compared with the reference group.

A model for dynamic independent component analysis is introduced where the dynamics are driven by the score of the pseudo likelihood with respect to the rotation angle of model innovations. While conditional second moments are invariant with respect to rotations, higher conditional moments are not, which may have important implications for applications. The pseudo maximum likelihood estimator of the model is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normally distributed. A simulation study reports good finite sample properties of the estimator, including the case of a mis-specification of the innovation density. In an application to a bivariate exchange rate seriesof the Euro and the British Pound against the US Dollar, it is shown that the model-implied conditional portfolio kurtosis largely aligns with narratives on financial stress as a result of the global financial crisis in 2008, the European sovereign debt crisis (2010-2013) and early rumors signalling the UK to leave the European Union (2017). These insights are consistent with arecently proposed model that associates portfolio kurtosis with a geopolitical risk factor.

A model for dynamic independent component analysis is introduced where the dynamics are driven by the score of the pseudo likelihood with respect to the rotation angle of model innovations. While conditional second moments are invariant with respect to rotations, higher conditional moments are not, which may have important implications for applications. The pseudo maximum likelihood estimator of the model is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normally distributed. A simulation study reports good finite sample properties of the estimator, including the case of a mis-specification of the innovation density. In an application to a bivariate exchange rate seriesof the Euro and the British Pound against the US Dollar, it is shown that the model-implied conditional portfolio kurtosis largely aligns with narratives on financial stress as a result of the global financial crisis in 2008, the European sovereign debt crisis (2010-2013) and early rumors signalling the UK to leave the European Union (2017). These insights are consistent with arecently proposed model that associates portfolio kurtosis with a geopolitical risk factor.

A model for dynamic independent component analysis is introduced where the dynamics are driven by the score of the pseudo likelihood with respect to the rotation angle of model innovations. While conditional second moments are invariant with respect to rotations, higher conditional moments are not, which may have important implications for applications. The pseudo maximum likelihood estimator of the model is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normally distributed. A simulation study reports good finite sample properties of the estimator, including the case of a mis-specification of the innovation density. In an application to a bivariate exchange rate series of the Euro and the British Pound against the US Dollar, it is shown that the model-implied conditional portfolio kurtosis largely aligns with narratives on financial stress as a result of the global financial crisis in 2008, the European sovereign debt crisis (2010-2013) and early rumors signalling the UK to leave the European Union (2017). These insights are consistent with a recently proposed model that associates portfolio kurtosis with a geopolitical risk factor.