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1. Do Higher Public Debt Levels Reduce Economic Growth?

Author:
Philipp Heimberger
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
While the effect of higher public debt levels on economic growth has received much attention, the literature partly points to contradictory results. This paper applies meta-regression methods to 826 estimates from 48 primary studies. The unweighted mean of the reported results suggests: a 10 percentage points increase in public-debt-to-GDP is associated with a decline in annual growth rates by 0.14 percentage points, with a 95% confidence interval from 0.10 to 0.18 percentage points. However, we cannot reject a zero effect after correcting for publication bias. Furthermore, the meta-regression analysis shows that tackling endogeneity between public debt and growth makes estimates lean less towards the negative side. In testing for non-linear effects, our results do not point to a universal public-debt-to-GDP threshold beyond which growth slows: threshold estimates are sensitive to data and econometric choices. These findings imply a lack of evidence of a consistently negative growth effect of higher public-debt-to-GDP.
Topic:
GDP, Economic Growth, Macroeconomics, and Public Debt
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Does Employment Protection Affect Unemployment? A Meta-analysis

Author:
Philipp Heimberger
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
Despite extensive research efforts, the magnitude of the effect of employment protection legislation (EPL) on unemployment remains unclear. Existing econometric estimates exhibit substantial variation, and it is therefore difficult to draw valid conclusions. This paper applies meta-analysis and meta-regression methods to a unique data set consisting of 881 observations on the effect of EPL on unemployment from 75 studies. Once we control for publication selection bias, we cannot reject the hypothesis that the average effect of EPL on unemployment is zero. The meta-regression analysis, which investigates sources of heterogeneity in the reported effect sizes, reveals the following main results. First, the choice of the EPL variable matters: estimates that build on survey-based EPL variables report a significantly stronger unemployment-increasing impact of EPL than estimates developed using EPL indices based on the OECD’s methodology, where the latter relies on coding information from legal provisions. Second, we find that employment protection has a small unemployment-increasing effect on female unemployment, compared with a zero impact on total unemployment. Third, using multi-year averages of the underlying data tends to dampen the unemployment effects of EPL. Fourth, product market regulation is found to moderate the effect of EPL on unemployment.
Topic:
Labor Issues, European Union, Employment, Unemployment, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

3. Does Economic Globalisation Affect Income Inequality? A Meta-analysis

Author:
Philipp Heimberger
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
A large volume of econometric literature has studied the impact of economic globalisation on income inequality around the world. However, reported econometric estimates vary substantially which makes it difficult to draw valid conclusions. This paper presents a quantitative summary and analysis of existing estimates regarding the globalisation-inequality relationship. We used a new data set consisting of 1254 observations from 123 peer-reviewed papers. By applying meta-analysis and meta-regression methods, we obtained several main findings. First, globalisation has a (small-to-moderate) positive impact on income inequality considering the total population of estimates. The average effect is robustly different from zero suggesting that globalisation increases income inequality. Second, while the effect of trade globalisation is small, financial globalisation shows a more sizable and significantly stronger inequality-increasing impact. Third, the cumulative evidence rejects theoretical accounts according to which economic globalisation reduces within-country income inequality in developing countries as the meta-analysis establishes an average inequality-increasing impact in both advanced and developing countries. Fourth, education and technology moderate the impact of globalisation on income inequality. Fifth, we tested for various other factors that could cause heterogeneity in the reported estimates including differences in the econometric specifications, the income inequality measures and data set used and publication characteristics.
Topic:
Globalization, Finance, Income Inequality, Macroeconomics, Trade, and Meta-analysis
Political Geography:
Global Focus