Suchergebnisse

We use a panel of quarterly time series observations on Finnish banks to estimate reduced form equations for the growth rate of bank loans. By allowing for individual bank specific effects in the empirical models we specifically seek evidence of a bank-lending channel for the transmission of monetary policy shocks in Finland. On the basis of our estimation results, we conclude that there is weak evidence in favour of the bank-lending channel for monetary policy shocks. Our data overlaps with the post crisis recovery of the Finnish banking sector with specific government support measures still active during the good part of the sample period. We try to capture the effects of these measures through a policy dummy variable in our empirical models. This policy dummy is highly significant, suggesting that the measures may have contributed to the growth rate of bank loans during the sample period

This paper analyzes the relationship between unemployment, average effective labour tax rates & public spending in 17 OECD countries. The focus is on the degree of centralization & cooperation in wage setting. Estimation results from a dynamic time-series-cross-section model suggest that the countries where wage setting takes place at the firm level have used labour taxes less extensively in financing welfare spending, compared to countries with centralized or decentralized bargaining. This is consistent with another finding, according to which labour taxes distort the labour demand the least in the countries with firm level bargaining. 2 Appendixes, 24 References. [Copyright 2004 Elsevier B.V.]