Gilles Mourre

• European Commission

This article provides an overview of public spending effectiveness (performance) and efficiency across the European Union over a decade (2007–2019) using a composite indicator. The results show an improvement of public spending effectiveness over time and a deterioration of the efficiency for most countries. Policies should be geared towards increa...

During the COVID-19 crisis, public debt ratios strongly increased, adding in several cases to existing debt vulnerabilities. This situation calls for a gradual, sustained and growth-friendly reduction of debt ratios towards more prudent levels, especially in the face of increasing costs of population ageing and tightening financing conditions. The...

We assess the growth friendliness, both for the short and long term, of the budget composition over the last 16 years (2001 -2017) for EU countries based on the OECD taxonomy of budget items – growth connection. Budget composition is still far from its optimum, sizeable gaps exist for almost all EU countries.

The paper analyses the growth-friendliness of public spending in EU countries over the decade 2007-2016. It looks into the composition, performance and efficiency of public expenditure across countries and specific functions of government. This approach allows for some granularity in the analysis. Using a literature survey, semi-disaggregated compo...

The European Commission methodology for computing the cyclically adjusted government budget balance provides a robust measurement of the fiscal position of the Member States. The fiscal semi-elasticities at the core of this method are structural parameters, mostly of fiscal nature, not linked to cyclical or other economic factors. Fiscal semi-elast...

This paper investigates how revenue from taxes reacts over time to a change in their tax base in the European Union (EU). The first novelty of the paper is to estimate the dynamics of revenue-to-base elasticities with an EU country panel to sizeably increase the number of available observations. Such a study has been made possible by a new database...

We update the semi-elasticities of the budget balance to output for the 28 EU Member States using new weights based on ESA2010 data (with unchanged elasticities for individual fiscal items). The revisions of the semi-elasticities are fairly small across Member States and leave the assessment of fiscal developments in the EU broadly unchanged. The r...

Despite its relevance for fiscal policy, non-tax revenue is only defined by exclusion and it is an area that has been scarcely studied for developed economies. This study is an attempt to provide an analysis of this relevant component of government revenue, using comparable national accounts data. It assesses the size, composition and volatility of...

This article examines the fiscal impact, and the associated welfare cost, of marginal reforms to work-related tax relief in five European countries. We combine a model of labor supply with microsimulation results to capture the interaction between the specific tax incentive and other provisions of the tax-benefit system along the entire earnings di...

This paper designs a horizontal indicator-based assessment methodology aimed at identifying those EU countries presenting a potential need and scope for shifting taxation away from labour to other tax bases less detrimental to growth. The assessment methodology, as a first step, selects a set of indicators measuring specific aspects of tax policy....

Income insurance A theoretical exercise with empirical application for the euro area This paper examines whether hypothetical macroeconomic insurance schemes of various kinds could improve the degree of cyclical income stabilisation in the euro area. We review the potential issues, the underlying trade-offs and the necessary conditions for such sc...

The fiscal effects of work-related tax expenditures in Europe The paper examines the fiscal impacts, and the associated welfare cost, of marginal reforms to work-related tax relief in five European countries. We combine a theoretical model of labour supply with micro-simulation results from an EU-wide model, which allows us to capture the interacti...

The cyclically-adjusted budget balance (CAB) is the backbone of the EU framework of fiscal surveillance, both in its preventive and corrective arms. The concept corresponds to the budget balance prevailing if the economy was running at potential. After correcting for the one-off and temporary measures, it is called structural budget balance and use...

The paper examines potential challenges arising at Member State level from the need and scope for either consolidating on the revenue side or shifting taxes away from labour. It uses a systematic indicator-based screening to identify Member States that may face a challenge in each of these two policy areas. The first quantitative screening is appli...

The 2012 Commission Tax Reform Report and the 2013 European Semester point to a series of challenges affecting tax policy in EU Member States in the context of fiscal consolidation. These concern the potential need and scope for consolidating public finance on the revenue side and rationalising the tax system by shifting tax away from labour to lea...

This paper analyses the adjustment mechanism in the euro area prior to the crisis. Results show that the real exchange rate adjusted to redress cyclical divergences and that after monetary unification, real exchange rate dynamics became less reactive to country-specific shocks but also less persistent. Regulations affecting price and wage nominal f...

Abstract This paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions and offers new empirical EU-based evidence on the impact of labour market reforms on employment and labour market adjustment. Although the literature traditionally treats labour market institutions as exogenous, attention shifted recently towards...

This paper analyses the adjustment mechanism in the euro area. Results show that the real exchange rate (REER) adjusts in such a way to redress cyclical divergences and that after monetary unification REER dynamics have become less reactive to country-specific shocks but also less persistent. It is found that regulations, notably affecting price an...

Summary for non-specialistsAn essential part of the Europe 2020 strategy consists of reforms with a medium- to long-term horizon that focus on promoting the sustainability of public finances and enhancing potential growth. Building on structural reform simulations with the DSGE model QUEST III, this paper presents several stylised scenarios combini...

The paper decomposes GDP both in terms of level per capita and growth rate, so as to identify the sources of income differences and of economic growth for all EU27 member states. This accounting approach has multiple advantages, although a number of substantial caveats should be borne in mind when interpreting the results. In particular, the detail...

The paper decomposes GDP both in terms of level per capita and growth rate, so as to identify the extent of labour utilisation in Europe and its effect on income differences and economic growth in all EU27 countries. While some caveats are associated with this approach, GDP is broken down into 5 items (per capita GDP level) and 12 (GDP growth), dec...

This paper aims at examining wage compression in Europe, defined as a relatively small wage differentials compared with productivity differences. Using the publicly available data on wages drawn from the Structure of Earnings Survey 2002, it considers the existence of wage compression both across occupations and levels of education by means of cros...

This PhD thesis ? made up of five empirical essays ? looks into the role of structural rigidities in recent labour market performance in Europe from complementary angles and yields several results. First, the effect of institutions is complex owing to numerous interactions and their endogenous nature. Second, the level of labour utilisation in the...

This paper aims to identify the relative contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the 15 Member States of the European Union before the 2004 enlargement (EU-15) over the 1980s and 1990s. To do so, it exploits both cross-sectional and time series variations in available data over the pas...

This paper presents an assessment of the budgetary impact of ageing for the EU Member States. It draws upon the macroeconomic assumptions developed jointly by the Ageing Working Group of the Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission-Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs for the purpose of making age-related expenditure...

This paper aims to identify the relative contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the 15 Member States of the European Union before the 2004 enlargement (EU-15) over the 1980s and 1990s. To do so, it exploits both cross-sectional and time series variations in available data over the pas...

This paper examines whether the pattern of growth in euro area employment seen in the period 1997 to 2001 differs from that recorded in the past and what could be the reasons. First, a standard employment equation is estimated for the euro area as a whole. This shows that the lagged impact of both output growth and real labour cost growth, together...

This paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions. It describes the different empirical approaches used to explore the nexus between labour market institutions and labour market performance. It stresses that the effect of institutions is complex in both stock and flow models and that it is also crucial to...

This paper presents the results of long run labour productivity and GDP growth rate projections (until 2050) for each of the 25 EU Member States and provides a detailed overview of the forecast methodology used. These projections were undertaken in order to provide an internationally comparable macroeconomic framework against which to assess the po...

This paper reviews the available indicators in the European Union to monitor short-term labour cost developments, i.e. of quarterly frequency, with a special focus on the euro area. It clarifies concepts, provides information on availability and compares the indicators against various statistical criteria, their historical track record and their pr...

This paper presents an assessment of the overall economic impact of ageing for the EU Member States. It draws upon the macroeconomic assumptions developed by the Ageing Working Group attached to the Economic Policy Committee and the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs for the purpose of making age related expenditure projections....

This paper aims to identify the contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the EU-15 countries, through the exploitation of both crosssectional and time series variations over the past two decades. This analysis is used to comment on whether part-time jobs have been used as a flexible wor...

This paper looks at the role of part-time work in labour mobility for 11 European countries. We find some evidence of part-time work being used as a stepping stone into full-time employment, but for a small proportion of individuals (less than 5%). Part-time jobs are also found to be more frequently taken up as a means to enter the labour market th...

This Paper provides an overview of the magnitude of sectoral wage differentials in the euro area as a whole. Even when adjusting for structural sectoral features such as the skill structure or the proportion of part-timers, average wage levels in services are substantially lower than in manufacturing. The paper also studies how the euro area wage s...

The paper examines the rationale for creating a database on labour market reforms and looks at the value-added of LABREF compared with existing datasets. In doing so, it considers recent developments in the economic literature as regards the design of labour market institutions. After a description of the coverage and structure of the database and...

A growing part-time employment share has been a main feature of a number of industrialized countries over the past two decades. A considerable variation in the rate of part-time work is evident by gender, age group, industrial sector and occupation. The stylized facts support the view that part-time employment represents an important opportunity pa...

We investigate the nature and sources of the decline in the level of employment of working age males in Australia in recent decades, drawing on both Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force survey data and census data. Alternative measures of the male employment rate are considered before settling on two complementary measures: the full-time em...

From an economic point of view, the antidumping process included in the WTO legislation seems to contain numerous imperfections. Such imperfections drive the authorities to overestimate in a systematic way antidumping cases and the necessity for sanctions. Antidumping duties imply high costs for the domestic economy when not justified. Traditionall...

This paper aims to identify the contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the EU-15 countries, through the exploitation of both cross-sectional and time series variations over the past two decades. This analysis is used to comment on whether part-time jobs have been used as a flexible wo...

A significant ageing trend can be observed in Europe and in other parts of the world. Fertility is decreasing and life expectancy increasing. The impact of migration is growing. The book deals with the implications for financial markets of these demographic trends. Leading economists and financial experts from Europe and the United States evaluate...