The latest public lecture to take place at CERGE-EI was presented by Andreas Tudyka of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) European Division. The topic of the report was to take a detailed look at the impact of aging populations in Central, Eastern and South Eastern European (CESEE) countries on the fiscal implications for health and pensions. Filip Pertold and Daniel Münich from the IDEA Think Tank at CERGE-EI gave the local feedback.
Professor Shelly Lundberg (University of California at Santa Barbara) is one of the world’s most recognized professors on the topic of population economics. She was invited to Prague to give a plenary talk as part of CERGE-EI’s Prague Workshop on Gender and Family in the Labor Market (Family Environment during Childhood and Educational Gender Gap). Continue reading The Prague Workshop on Gender and Family in the Labor Market→
Read our short interview with professor Stephen Morris (Princeton University), who gave a research seminar at CERGE-EI on May 9, 2019. The interview was prepared by our PhD student, Vladimír Novák.
On 26 March 2019, Clemens
Fuest of the ifo Institute at the University of Munich came to CERGE-EI for the
second year in succession to present the latest EEAG report to a full audience.
Prof. Fuest started by defining the fragmenting aspect in the
title of this year’s report, explaining that the new Italian government that
went against many of the EU rules when defining their budget last year and the
ongoing Brexit negotiations have contributed to a destabilization of the EU.
Professor Gérard Roland (University of California, Berkeley), Visiting Professor at CERGE-EI, has been recently awarded the highest honor from the Czech Academy of Sciences. One of the most influential and successful European economists, admired among CERGE-EI community for his striking humbleness and inspiring thoughts, spoke with us about some of his recent works on China, but also about his first meeting with the co-founder of CERGE-EI, Professor Jan Svejnar. Continue reading Those who believe in science must also fight for its values→
The recent Restud Tour turned out, in many respects, to be the research event of the year for us, and we hope to keep the inspiration and ambience it created going for some time. Here is a short summary for those who could not come, including a short joint interview.
On 24th of February CERGE-EI hosted a presentation, Perspectives on the European Economy, provided by the European Economic Advisory Group at CESifo. The conference explored a variety of hot topics that are examined in the EEAG Report on the European Economy 2016, which was released earlier in the week. The session included two co-authors of the report, John Driffill and Jan-Egbert Sturm, plus special guest, Kamil Galuščák of the Czech National Bank, and was chaired by Danial Münich of IDEA think-tank at CERGE-EI. Continue reading Perspectives on the European Economy: An Overview→
This post was prepared by Geghetsik Afunts, a second year PhD student at CERGE-EI.
Do governments need a “Personal Trainer or Watchdog” to achieve objectives such as long-term sustainability of public finances, economic growth or surplus targets? Fiscal watchdogs have existed for a long time in some countries and one of the first European countries was Sweden. But the Chairman of the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council John Hassler says that in practice such institutions are considered more as personal trainers than watchdogs. Continue reading Fiscal Policy Council: Personal Trainer or Watchdog?→
Over the course of his long career, George Psacharopoulos has made a deep impact on the way education is viewed from the perspective of economics. During his CERGE-EI Public Lecture on November 4th, Prof Psacharopoulos gave an interesting overview of the evolution of this research. He walked the audience through years of evolving theories and empirical evidence on the importance of education as both a personal and public investment, sharing a number of revealing facts and thoughtful insights.
See the full lecture with accompanying slides here:
Unemployment is a major source of misery in modern society. It is also plainly a waste of resources. So it is perhaps no surprise that macro and labor economists are obsessed with explaining the phenomenon. But are they searching in the wrong place for answers? Professor Andrew Oswald (Warwick University) said at his public lecture at CERGE-EI that he thinks they are, and that he may have found a key.
According to Oswald, economists have typically looked for answers “too close to the source.” Standard explanations have focused on the impact of trade unions, over-generous unemployment benefits, and inflexible labor markets. Yet policies meant to address these issues have made only minor dents on unemployment levels.
Professor Oswald ventured to propose a radically different explanation for the persistent unemployment we observe across developed countries. According to his research, the level of homeownership within an economic area can largely explain the level of unemployment. Few economists have explored this rather unintuitive notion, but as Oswald noted, it is typical for experts to overlook deep structural forces in favor of more immediate explanations.
But how does homeownership negatively impact employment? Oswald considers three possibilities. The first is that higher homeownership lowers geographical mobility. By reducing the flexibility to move between locations, homeownership reduces workers ability to relocate to places where their knowledge and skills may be put to better use. The second possibility is that homeownership contributes to urban sprawl and lower-density housing. Long commuting times and congestion hamper economic activity and efficiency.
Finally, Oswald points out that homeownership directly relates to the ‘Not in My Back Yard’ problem (NIMBY). Homeowners often oppose new productive development projects because they perceive the projects as having negative external effects on their neighborhood. Residents can often team up in homeowners’ unions to block projects from being realized. Even though they often agree that those developments are needed in society, they do not want the development to take place in their ‘back yard.’ As such, NIMBY blocks productive economic activity and development from taking root.
Pondering how a lake becomes filled with water, primitive man would have concluded that it collects the rain falling from the sky. He could not have imagined that hidden streams of water deep underground are the true source. Andrew Oswald’s proposition—that homeownership is the underlying cause of long-term unemployment—is also hidden from sight, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s not there.
The CERGE-EI Public Speaker Series invites leading international scholars to Prague to present their ideas and engage in public discussion. Learn about upcoming CERGE-EI events here.
