Spring Semester 2022-2023

  • Date:
    02/03/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00

    March 2, 2023

    Title: “Endogenous frequencies and large shocks: price setting in Greece during the crisis” 

    Speaker: Professor of Economics Huw Dixon, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University.

    Host:  Professor Philippopoulos Apostolos, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: A36

    Attachments: PDF icon PDF of Relevant Paper 

    Abstact: We utilize a unique micro price data set for Greece that underpins the Greek CPI. It spans almost two decades, during which Greece suffered a large economic shock. We find that during this time there were significant changes in the pricing behavior of Greek firms. We also find macro-economic developments such as annual inflation and output growth are important factors in determining the frequency and size of price changes. This leads to an intertemporal inflation dynamic linking current inflation to future price behavior and inflation. Utilizing the empirical estimates from the data, we combine a Taylor rule and Euler equation with the inflation dynamic resulting from the asymmetric impact of inflation on the frequency of price increases and the frequency of price decreases. The results of the simulations capture the Greek inflation developments well. Moreover, they also capture developments in the frequency of price increases and decreases seen in other economies and over different timeperiods.

  • Date:
    23/03/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00

    March 23, 2023

    Title: “European Trade and Growth Imbalances: A Sign-Restriction GVAR Analysis” 

    Speaker: Professor Theodore Panagiotidis, Department of Economics, University of Macedonia

    HostProfessor George Economides, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: A36

    Attachments: PDF icon PDF of Relevant Paper 

    Abstact: The accumulated, persistent trade and economic imbalances between the South euro area (SEA) and the North euro area (NEA) countries brought about severe strains for the euro following the global financial crisis of 2008. This paper assesses alternative scenarios suggested to restore the trade imbalances within the euro area. We employ a structural Bayesian Global VAR in which theory-consistent long- and short-run restrictions are imposed. Empirical results show that a depreciation of the SEA real exchange rate and/or a reduction of the SEA unit labor cost can lead to an improvement of the SEA trade balance through an increase in exports. Evidence also emerges that a negative demand shock in the SEA can also ameliorate the SEA trade balance by boosting exports and reducing imports. Among the policies that could restore trade imbalances in the SEA, austerity is less painful in terms of adjustment to long-run equilibrium. Counterfactual analysis signal that if policies – improved competitiveness and/or austerity in SEA – were pursued prior to 2010 the European debt crisis could have been averted. Finally, a simple loss function exercise shows that a persistent contractionary demand shock in SEA will maximize the welfare of pan-European social-welfare planer-policy maker.

  • Date:
    17/05/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00

    Wednesday, May 17, 2023

    Title: "Globalization and Factor Income Taxation"

    Speaker: Assistant Professor Pierre Bachas, ESSEC-Business School

    HostProfessor Nikolas Topaloglou, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: A36

    Attachments: PDF icon PDF of Relevant Paper  

    Abstact: Exploiting a new global macro-historical database of effective tax rates, we uncover an intriguing pro-tax-capacity effect of international trade. While effective capital tax rates have fallen in developed countries, they have risen in developing countries since the mid-1990s. Event studies of trade liberalization shocks and instrumental variable regressions show that a significant share of this rise can be explained by trade integration, which increases the share of output produced in large corporations, where capital is easier to tax. In contrast to a widely held view, globalization appears in many countries to have supported the ability of government to tax capital. 

  • Date:
    23/05/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00

    TuesdayMay 23, 2023

    Title: "Can Deficits Finance Themselves?"

    Speaker: Professor George-Marios Angeletos, Northwestern University & NBER

    HostProfessor Evangelos Vassilatos, Head of the Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: Τ106

    Attachments: PDF icon PDF of Relevant Paper

    Abstact: We study how fiscal deficits are financed in environments with two key features: (i) nominal rigidity and (ii) a violation of Ricardian equivalence due to finite lives or liquidity constraints. In such environments, deficits contribute to their own financing via two channels: a boom in real economic activity, which expands the tax base, and a surge in inflation, which erodes the real value of nominal government debt. Our main theoretical result relates the potency of such self-financing to the timing of fiscal adjustment. Pushing the fiscal adjustment further into the future helps generate a larger and more persistent boom, leading to more self-financing. Full self-financing is possible in the limit as fiscal adjustment is delayed more and more: the government can run a deficit today, refrain from tax hikes or spending cuts in the future, and nevertheless see its debt converge back to its initial level. We conclude by arguing that a large degree of self-financing is not only theoretically possible but also quantitatively relevant.

  • Date:
    29/05/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00

    Monday, May 29, 2023

    Title: "Fiscal Expenditure Consolidation and Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Ex Ante or Ex Post"

    Speaker: Dr. Tamon Asonuma, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

    HostProfessor Evangelos Vassilatos, Head of the Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: Τ106

    Attachments: PDF icon PDF of Relevant Paper (ΤΒΑ)

    Abstact: ΤΒΑ

  • Date:
    08/06/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00


    June 8, 2023

    Title: Work pay and employee retention: evidence from the 2016 change in the English NHS trainee doctors' contract

    Speaker: Assistant Professor Ioannis Laliotis, Department of Economics, University of Peloponnese

    HostAssistant Professor Vassilis Sarantides, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: A36

  • Date:
    14/06/2023 - 15:30 - 17:00

    Wednesday, June 14, 2023

    Title: "Heterogeneous labor market response to monetary policy: small versus large firms"

    Speaker: Assistant Professor Natassa Zervou, University of Texas at Austin

    HostProfessor Evangelos Vassilatos, Head of the Department of Economics,  Athens University of Economics and Business

    Time: 15.30 -17.00

    Room: A36

    Attachments: PDF icon PDF of Relevant Paper

    Abstact: We study the heterogeneous effects of monetary policy on the labor market of large and small firms in the United States. We uncover the following facts: (i) Expansionary monetary policy boosts employment and hiring growth in small firms more than in large firms; however, a monetary contraction shrinks small firms’ employment and hiring growth less than in large firms. As a result, monetary policy has a countervailing effect on the employment concentration in large firms. (ii) There is an  asymmetry in the effects of monetary contractions versus expansions with respect to firms’ employment and hiring growth. Not accounting for such asymmetry leads to the fallacious conclusion that small firms respond more than large firms to monetary policy shocks. This asymmetry also reveals that contractionary monetary policy shocks have immediate effects on the labor market while the effects of expansionary shocks are slower to manifest. (iii) The response of employment is weaker than that of hiring, highlighting the importance of using labor market flows. (iv) The growth of earnings of new hires decreases similarly across large and small firms in contractions but reacts more for small firms in expansions. We use a heterogeneous firms model with a working capital constraint, an upward-sloping marginal cost curve, and a financial accelerator effect. We augment this model with the wage effect summarized in fact (iv) and demonstrate how the additional wage effect can explain the differential response of the hiring and employment growth of small and large firms of fact (i).