Macro & fiscal policy

Analyzing in detail the destination and pace at which the €80 billion that Spain has been allocated to date under the Next Generation EU Funds program remains a major challenge, even considering the mid-term assessment recently published by the European Commission on plan’s progress. The first and principal reason is that, unfortunately, there is no […]

Last Tuesday, February 6th, took place the presentation of our book ‘Un país posible: manual de reformas políticamente viables’ at the Bidebarrieta Library in Bilbao. The event, co-organized thanks to the impulse of Silván & Miracle, was attended by four of the authors: Toni Roldán, Lucas Gortazar, Sandra León and Pedro Linares, all of them […]

Key ideas → In 2021 the CPI of the poorest households was substantially higher than that of the richest households due to higher electricity prices. In 2022 it started to equalize, and in 2023 it has come full circle with an opposite picture: the CPI is lower for households with fewer resources. → The reason […]

The new legislature is opening a debate on the reform of the unemployment benefits and subsidies system, with apparently opposing views even within the government itself.  Gathering in this brief the most relevant published evidence that identifies causal effects of recent reforms for Spain, allows to anticipate what effects reforms in this area might have:  […]

Aida Caldera, head of division in the OECD’s economics department, talks to Jorge Galindo, deputy director of EsadeEcPol, about the organization’s latest report analyzing the Spanish economy. They address its short-term resilience and how it contrasts with the worst medium- and long-term prospects, going in depth into its bottlenecks (productivity, debt) and how they condition […]

Los efectos que generan los impuestos sobre el consumo de bienes con externalidades negativas reciben, desde hace ya más de un siglo, considerable atención por parte de la investigación económica y también de los formuladores de políticas a nivel nacional. Sin embargo, estudiar el efecto que tienen los impuestos sobre estos productos supone un desafío […]

Last Tuesday, November 28th, we talked about our book “Un País Posible: Manual de Reformas Políticamente Viables” (Un País Posible: A Handbook of Politically Viable Reforms) thanks to the invitation of the Harvard Kennedy School Spain Alumni Network. The conversation counted with the interventions of Toni Roldán, Miguel Almunia, Marta Suárez-Varela and Antonio Cabrales and […]

España tiene prácticamente la misma renta real per capita que hace 15 años, mientras que otros países de nuestro entorno son mucho más ricos que entonces. Esto significa que en los últimos dieciocho años no hemos mejorado, de media, nuestro nivel de vida. Nos encontramos, por tanto, en el camino hacia dos décadas perdidas. Hay […]

Key ideas → The use of tax cuts and generalized subsidies was an emergency measure in a situation that demanded rapid responses to curb the escalation of inflation, but it had a limited impact on the households that suffer the most, probably ended up in the pockets that needed it least, has meant an increase […]

La inflación está suponiendo una pérdida severa de poder adquisitivo para muchas familias en España, especialmente las de menores ingresos. Ante este problema, el 1 de enero de 2023 el gobierno español optó por poner en marcha una reducción del IVA de los alimentos de primera necesidad del 4% al 0%; y otros alimentos básicos […]

Solo un 8,3% de los hogares reciben algún bono social energético, aunque un 14,3% declaró que tuvo problemas para mantener su vivienda a una temperatura adecuada en 2021, el último dato disponible. Este porcentaje sube solo hasta el 17% entre el tercio de hogares de menor ingreso, y desciende rápidamente conforme nos fijamos en hogares […]