Philipp Heimberger
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heimbergecon.bsky.social
Philipp Heimberger
@heimbergecon.bsky.social

Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw); macroeconomics, economic policy, public finance, political economy, meta-science.

Economics 86%
Political science 11%

This new AER paper finds large negative economic effects of wars: "A war of average intensity is associated with an output drop of close to 10% in the war-site economy, while consumer prices rise by approximately 20%." Negative spillovers through trade and common borders.

According to the European Commission, France and Austria will have among the most restrictive fiscal stances in 2026 (largest contraction in Romania). In countries like Italy and Poland, EU funds (RRF) will still offset national consolidation efforts, but only until 2027.

Reposted by Rebecca Sear

This paper shows: support for lower taxes declines significantly when this comes into conflict with other fiscal policy objectives, e.g. social spending. Regressive reforms receive less support than progressive reforms. Left-leaning, high-income voters resist tax reductions more.

Reposted by Iikka Korhonen

This paper examines a journal policy removing significance stars from regression tables and finds no significant effect on p-hacking, the preference for statistically significant results. It seems cosmetic changes don't eliminate the underlying incentive to chase significance.

Reposted by Michelle Everson

Academic publishing is a lucrative business for a very small number of private academic publishers. For 🇦🇹, this paper estimates: public spending benefits publishing companies with a large amount - 25% of the annual basic funding universities receive from the Ministry of education

National fiscal policy in EU member countries has turned contractionary. Defence spending is rising, with larger cuts elsewhere. Nationally funded investment will fall in 2025–27, and EU recovery funds will cease to cushion the decline after 2027.

National fiscal policy in EU member countries has turned contractionary. Defence spending is rising, with larger cuts elsewhere. Nationally funded investment will fall in 2025–27, and EU recovery funds will cease to cushion the decline after 2027.

"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."

crei.cat

This paper shows it's important to account for fiscal policy’s impact on productivity: long periods of large primary surpluses can depress investment and growth, making public debt stabilisation harder. Pro-growth fiscal reforms may boost productivity, make debt easier to sustain

Germany used to run large trade surpluses in capital goods with China (exports > imports). Since the start of 2025, Germany has been running a trade deficit with China.

Link to the paper: empn.eu/publication/...
Making Fiscal Space Policy-responsive – European Macro Policy Network
empn.eu

Our simulations based on five national medium-term fiscal-structural plans (Austria, Finland, France, Germany and Italy) show that growth-enhancing measures increase potential output and thus expand fiscal space, while growth-reducing measures do the opposite.

In this paper, we propose to make potential output estimates in EU fiscal rules policy-responsive in assessing fiscal space via debt sustainability analysis. Allow public investment, R&D expenditure, and labour-supply reforms to affect potential output and fiscal space!

jesse-silbert.github.io

Large language models like ChatGPT make writing much cheaper and easier. This disrupts markets where writing used to signal a person’s ability, e.g. job applications. Customization of applications no longer indicates real ability; employers struggle to find the best workers

New paper on the fatal consequences of job loss using 🇫🇮 administrative data: "For every 100,000 displaced men, there are 1,100 additional deaths. 60% accrue to the displaced worker, 40% are due to excess spousal mortality.. no such dire consequences are observed after a woman’s job loss"