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We develop a general framework of identification and estimation for automatic debiased machine learning (DML) where the parameter of interest $θ_0$ is identified by a moment condition involving a nuisance $γ_0$ that may be high dimensional. DML leverages machine learning to estimate $γ_0$ while correcting for regularization and overfitting biases that may otherwise transmit to biased estimation of⋯

Causal inference is often focused on average effects, which can hide important aspects of the effect distributions. Here we consider the entire posterior effects distribution by estimating full counterfactual outcome distributions. We propose a methodology for inference on counterfactual distributions which builds upon the martingale posterior framework of Fong et al. (2023). This provides a highl⋯

This paper proposes a stage independent multiple sampling plan (SIMSP) to improve inspection efficiency by reducing the number of samples required at each sampling stage. Unlike conventional multiple sampling plans (MSP), the proposed SIMSP eliminates the dependence of each sampling stage on the outcome of the preceding inspection. The proposed approach is developed for non-repairable products sol⋯

Transportation network partitioning is essential for applications such as traffic analysis, simulation, and mobility pattern identification. However, transportation networks combine structural information with heterogeneous operational attributes, ranging from scalar indicators to temporal profiles. Existing approaches generally rely on predefined formulations to integrate these sources of informa⋯

High-dimensional data with sparse structure and spatio-temporal dependence arise in many scientific domains. We develop a Bayesian feature-extraction framework for spatio-temporal settings that employs Gaussian and Diffused-gamma priors to induce structured sparsity. The modeling framework specifies a general likelihood via Bregman divergence, enabling compatibility with a range of loss functions⋯

Self-reported numerical variables in sample surveys are frequently subject to coarsening, as respondents tend to report rounded or heaped values rather than the exact underlying quantity. While the statistical literature offers various model-based solutions, official statistics and public health surveillance routinely require design-based inference on finite-population indicators under complex sam⋯

Classical early-warning signals assume that recovery slows near a tipping point, but in a well-studied CESM simulation of AMOC collapse, autocorrelation and variance decrease instead. We develop a preregistered diagnostic that uses only past data to estimate the slowest mode of a memory operator fitted to the evolving overturning structure. The operator ensemble produces an exploratory alarm 77 ye⋯

The Gini index remains the most important measure of economic inequality worldwide, and accurate estimates of this index are essential for effective public policies. Yet, Gini estimates for the same country and year vary considerably across data sources, a problem that remains largely unresolved. The paper reviews the largest global and regional databases providing Gini estimates, surveys the rela⋯

Bayes factors provide a coherent Bayesian measure of evidence for competing hypotheses and have recently been used as the basis for single-arm phase II trial designs with binary endpoints. In contrast to classical power analyses based on test statistics and p-values, Bayes-factor based sample size calculations target high probabilities of obtaining compelling evidence either for a relevant treatme⋯

It is obvious to say that an adequate estimation of the autocorrelation function is central in time series analysis. In this paper, we propose three new robust estimators based on ratios of observations, which offer strong resistance against outliers. While the first estimator, which is based on the median, is not efficient, the second is a Quasi Maximum Likelihood (QML) estimator with better effi⋯

I critique a set of entrenched methodological conventions that collectively create systemic dysfunction in statistical research for clinical decisions. These include: (1) the prevalent use of hypothesis tests to compare treatments, (2) remoteness from patient care of the methods used to evaluate the accuracy of predictions of patient outcomes, (3) poor practice of meta-analysis to combine findings⋯

Let $V$ and $U$ be independent standard normal random variables. For any Borel map $φ\colon\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$, set $Y_φ=φ(V)+U$, and define $P_φ(y)=\mathbb{E}[V\mid Y_φ=y]$ and $F_φ(x)=\mathbb{E}[P_φ(x+U)]$. We prove that, if for every $v\in\mathbb{R}$, the quantity $φ(v)$ maximises $x(v-F_φ(x))$ over $x\in\mathbb{R}$, then $φ$ is the identity function. This is the normalised one-period Kyle⋯

Statement by Mr Timur M Suleimenov, Governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, on the base rate of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Astana, 5 June 2026.

Keynote speech by Mr Zhu Hexin, Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China and SAFE Administrator, at the 2026 Lujiazui Forum, Shanghai, 17 June 2026.

Text of the Sir Douglas Copland Memorial Lecture to the Economic Society of Australia (Victoria) by Mr Andrew Hauser, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Melbourne, 24 June 2026.

Speech by Mr Naoki Tamura, Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan, at a meeting with local leaders, Hyogo, 25 June 2026.

Welcome remarks (via pre-recorded video) by Ms Lisa D Cook, Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at the State of Small Business Symposium, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 24 June 2026.

Speech by Ms Chiara Scotti, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the "6th Dolomiti Macro Meeting", organised by Free University of Bozen, BI Norwegian Business School, Centre for Applied Macroeconomics and Commodity Prices (CAMP), Bozen, 20 June 2026.

Opening remarks by Mr Gabriel Makhlouf, Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, at the 10th Annual Macroprudential Conference, jointly organised with the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Nederlandsche Bank, and the Sveriges Riksbank, Dublin, 22 June 2026.

Speech by Dr Joachim Nagel, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, at the International Bankers Forum, Frankfurt am Main, 24 June 2026.

Opening remarks by Mr Martin Kocher, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, the Austrian central bank, at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) | SUERF Economics Conference "Monetary policy trade-offs in a heterogeneous currency area", Vienna, 18 June 2026.

Concluding remarks by Mr Martin Kocher, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, the Austrian central bank, at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) | SUERF Economics Conference "Monetary policy trade-offs in a heterogeneous currency area", Vienna, 19 June 2026.

Remarks by Mr Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada, at Paris Europlace – Chambre de commerce France-Canada, Paris, 23 June 2026.

Speech by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at an exchange of views on "The economic and fiscal implications in Europe of the Middle East crisis", at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament, Brussels, 23 June 2026.

Speech At the 2026 Economic Luncheon of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, Anchorage, Alaska

Speech At the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Speech At The Exchequer Club of Washington D.C., Washington, D.C.

Speech At “Next-Gen Financial Inclusion,” the third annual Financial Inclusion Conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C. (via pre-recorded video)

Speech At “Next-Gen Financial Inclusion,” the third annual Financial Inclusion Conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board

Speech At the New York Association for Business Economics, New York, New York

Speech At a Bank Policy Institute London Conference, London, United Kingdom

Speech At the Financial Stability Board Virtual Outreach Event

Speech At "Challenges for Monetary Policy Transmission in a Changing World," a conference sponsored by the Bank of Italy for the research network initiated by the European System of Central Banks, Rome, Italy

Speech At the State of Small Business Symposium hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (via pre-recorded video)

Speech At the Fifth Conference on the International Roles of the Dollar, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, D.C.

Speech At American University, Washington, D.C.

Monetary policy decision We have decided to leave the SNB policy rate unchanged at 0%. Banks' sight deposits held at the SNB will be remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold. The discount for sight deposits above this threshold is unchanged at 0.25 percentage points. If necessary, we have an increased willingness to intervene in the foreign exchange market. We thereby counter a⋯

The SNB is institutionally sound and on a solid footing. Its unique legal form, that of a special-statute joint-stock company administered with the participation and under the oversight of the Confederation, has remained unchanged since its foundation. This special institutional structure contributes significantly to the SNB's independence and stability. The shareholder structure is characterised⋯

The world is going through a period of great uncertainty. As a central bank, we have to accept this as it is - and deal with the uncertainty. The past 25 years have seen several phases of great uncertainty. Nevertheless, the SNB has achieved its objective of price stability. The Swiss economy has also developed favourably overall. We were able to do so because three prerequisites for our work were⋯

Payments are the backbone of a modern economy. Virtually no goods would change hands and virtually no services would be provided in today's world without a functioning payments system. From a macroeconomic perspective, resilience and efficiency are the overarching objectives in the payments system. Payment methods must be secure and, where possible, available continuously; and they must be technic⋯

Monetary policy decision We have decided to leave the SNB policy rate unchanged at 0%. Banks' sight deposits held at the SNB will be remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold. The discount for sight deposits above this threshold still stands at 0.25 percentage points. Given the conflict in the Middle East, our willingness to intervene in the foreign exchange market has increased⋯

Monetary policy decision We have decided to leave the SNB policy rate unchanged at 0%. Banks' sight deposits held at the SNB will be remunerated at the SNB policy rate up to a certain threshold. The discount for sight deposits above this threshold still stands at 0.25 percentage points. We remain willing to be active in the foreign exchange market as necessary. Inflation in recent months has been⋯

At its monetary policy assessment in September 2025, the Swiss National Bank decided to leave its policy rate at 0%. The SNB also indicated that it remains willing to be active in the foreign exchange market as necessary. The SNB makes monetary policy decisions, such as that taken in September, at its monetary policy assessments. These take place in March, June, September and December. Every decis⋯

We study how extended stockholder liability shaped bank resolution during and after the Panic of 1893, comparing California state banks (unlimited liability) with national banks (double liability). Using newly assembled data linking California state bank presidents to census records and national

How do we evaluate the welfare gains from transport infrastructure investment? We present a quantitative spatial framework that integrates traffic and economic responses to infrastructure improvements and derives the elasticity of aggregate welfare to changes in the transportation network. The

The US Health and Retirement Study collects data on participants recall fluency (RF), their ability to recall words from a list, a standard measure of memory used by psychologists. Controlling for multiple demographic characteristics as well as IQ, people with a higher RF are more optimistic about

Every SVAR result is conditional on two choices: the restrictions that identify the shock and the variables on which they operate. The literature disciplines the first; the second is chosen by hand. We develop a Bayesian methodology that constructs information sets, uses an out-of-sample criterion,

We use newly digitized records for 1.2 million students at 60 co-educational U.S. colleges, 19151943, linked to enrollment records for their children through 1963, to study how colleges shape marital matching and the intergenerational transmission of educational advantage. About 6% of men and 9% of

By age 17, a quarter of U.S. students have experienced a peer suicide. Using linked administrative data from South Carolina and a matched difference-in-differences design, we find that exposure to a peer's self-harm death increases the probability of a self-harm diagnosis by nearly 50% and both the

How do biased beliefs about the interest rate distribution affect search, negotiation, and loan terms in consumer credit markets? In collaboration with Chile's financial regulator, we conducted a randomized controlled trial with 112,063 loan seekers. Randomly eliciting beliefs about interest rates

Credit card interest rates currently average 22%, an 18% spread over the short rate. This spread far exceeds that on any other loan or bond, yet nearly half of households are credit card borrowers. Why are credit card rates so high? To understand this, and the economics of credit card banking, we

The literature on imperfect competition in labor markets has expanded rapidly in recent years. This article provides a guide to the field, focusing on the firm-specific ("residual") labor supply elasticity as the definition of a firm's labor market power. We present a general framework showing how

Macroeconomics tends to view exchange rate movements as transitory. However, persistent exchange rate realignments and the associated capital flows can have long-run implications for structural change and productivity growth. We provide empirical evidence that policies of reserve accumulation and

Theories of outsourcing often presume that private firms are more efficient producers of goods and services, but that contracting frictions mean that firms do not internalize the government's objective function. But perhaps, for some tasks, the government can actually be more productively efficient?

Elites maintain disproportionate political power even in formally inclusive political systems, yet the institutions through which they coordinate and reproduce this advantage remain poorly understood. We study membership in the Buenos Aires Jockey ClubArgentina's most prominent elite social

Digital technologies have transformed the news landscape, shifting consumption from print media toward online providers. This has allowed news outlets to collect richer data on individual readers, and to use those data both to tailor the news a reader sees— which stories appear and how they are framed—and to sell more precisely targeted advertising. Online news outlets also increasingly recruit re⋯

What gave rise to the mosaic of cultural expressions across the globe? Why are some societies more culturally diverse than others? This study develops a unified theory of cultural evolution, characterizing the forces that have governed this process over the course of human existence. The research advances the hypothesis that population movements and socioeconomic transformations generated a mismat⋯

Do individuals at war avoid news about outgroup victims? Would such news affect them if they were exposed to it? We study Israelis and Jordanians during the 2023-2025 Gaza war. Four findings stand out. First, individuals are substantially less willing to read about outgroup than ingroup civilian victims. Second, news avoidance is driven less by instrumental considerations or universal affective fa⋯

We study how subjective survival beliefs and financial literacy jointly shape saving and portfolio decisions later in life. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we document that individuals who underestimate their survival probabilities are less likely to participate in risky financial markets. To identify the underlying mechanisms, we conduct a randomized survey experiment th⋯

We link two global trends—AI and geoeconomic fragmentation—asking how fragmentation affects the international diffusion of AI, the magnitude of gains, and their distribution across economies. We ask these questions in general but also with a focus on the MENAP economies.

Fertility has fallen in nearly all high-income countries. People also report wanting fewer children: between 2012 and 2022 the ideal number of children fell from 2.42 to 2.31 and the share of respondents intending a child within three years fell from 28 to 21 percent over a similar period. Why? Using two cross-national surveys that ask respondents about their attitudes and their fertility preferen⋯

Social norms are an important barrier to gender convergence in economic outcomes. We study whether a public policy designed to promote gender equality at home can pave the way towards gender convergence by shaping gender norms in the next generation. We exploit the introduction of paid paternity leave in Spain in 2007, which granted fathers 13 days of non-transferable paid leave after childbirth.⋯

This paper studies how an unemployment-benefit reform in one member state of a monetary union affects savings, net foreign asset positions, and fiscal space across member states when households face incomplete insurance. Lower benefits reduce unemployment and increase fiscal space in the reforming country. Employed workers increase their precautionary savings to compensate for reduced public insur⋯

Can localized weather shocks to upstream fuel suppliers undermine down-stream electricity reliability? Using administrative data linking South African power plants to contracted coal mines from 2015 to 2024, we combine plant operating records, mining-firm revenue data, and route-level traffic sensor data. Exploiting within-plant variation in supplier-mine rainfall, we find that rainfall shocks red⋯

Job mobility is risky, workers are risk averse, and insurance markets are incomplete. This paper studies how these features curb and distort job-to-job transitions by making workers excessively cautious: they place too much weight on job safety over wage and productivity gains. We demonstrate this tradeoff by eliciting employed workers’ wage-safety indifference curves in a custom, representative s⋯

We estimate short-run electricity demand responses to price changes for Norwegian households from 2023 to 2025, using continental solar and wind forecasts, and hydrological inflow to instrument supply-driven price variation. The presence of several instruments for the price changes allows us to explicitly test the margins at which substitution happens. Households’ electricity substitution is real⋯

Cognition is likely to be important for job search, but its role is not yet well understood. We study an online field experiment with jobseekers registered at the Swiss public employment services. Participants were randomly assigned to an online cognitive training program designed to strengthen core cognitive abilities and transversal cognitive abilities relevant for job search. Combining administ⋯

We study a policy change in the Netherlands that unexpectedly reduced the duration of preferential tax treatment for high-skilled migrants from specific countries. Using administrative data, we document substantial out-migration responses driven entirely by the top 1% of earners, with no detectable response below the 95th percentile. Among the 95-99th percentile, previously internationally mobile⋯

In standard life-cycle models, household consumption and welfare more strongly depend on lifetime income, but most countries base income taxes on current income and use progressive taxes to reduce inequality and provide social insurance. Is lifetime income a better tax base for governments seeking to provide such social insurance and redistribution? To answer this question, we build a quantitative⋯

This paper studies how vehicle taxation shapes fleet exit. We exploit Germany's 2008/9 circulation tax reform, which generated a sharp discontinuity in annual tax liabilities at a registration cutoff date. Using administrative micro-data covering the universe of registered vehicles during the second half of 2008, we apply a difference-in-discontinuities design to estimate the effect of annual circ⋯

When should governments sacrifice production efficiency for redistribution? We generalize the celebrated result of Diamond and Mirrlees (1971a, b) by allowing for imperfect competition, suboptimal and nonlinear taxation. We demonstrate that production efficiency hinges on the flexibility of the tax system in compensating gains and losses from changes in factor prices. This requires the tax system⋯

Profit shifting by multinational corporations is thought to reduce tax revenue around the world. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the introduction of standard regulations to limit profit shifting. Using administrative tax and customs data from Chile, we find that the reform was ineffective in reducing multinationals’ transfers to lower-tax countries and did not significantly raise⋯

This paper studies the capitalization of property taxes into housing prices by exploiting a unique institutional setting. We utilize a nationwide reform that raised the statutory base rate of the property tax by 80% while simultaneously restricting the fiscal instruments municipalities could use to mitigate the hike. Exploiting a population-based discontinuity in tax rates, we deploy a difference-⋯

Joint taxation of married couples represents a puzzle for welfare economics. We investigate whether political economy forces can explain its persistence. We develop sufficient statistics to determine whether a reform towards individual taxation would garner majority support and apply this framework to the U.S. tax system since the 1960s. Our findings indicate that support for individual taxation h⋯

We study the fiscal determinants of the French Revolution, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the salt tax—a large source of royal revenues and one of the most extractive forms of taxation of the Ancien R´egime. Implementing a Regression Discontinuity design (RDD), we find that parts of France subject to a higher salt tax experienced more revolts against the monarchy between 1750 and 1⋯

This paper studies the role for progressive labor income taxation in the context of social security reform. We propose a novel reform that replaces redistributive pensions with a contribution-based system while simultaneously increasing the progressivity of labor income taxation to preserve social insurance. Using a stylized model, we show that the benefit of such reform is derived from the Frisch⋯

This paper introduces a new harmonized global database on estate, inheritance, and gift (EIG) taxation, covering more than 170 countries, some with data going back to the 18th century, and all U.S. states from 2006. Despite substantial and persistent cross-country heterogeneity in tax design, we document a declining trend in the adoption and progressivity of EIG taxes since the 1980s. Using a two-⋯

The OECD has promoted the adoption of internationally standardized transfer pricing rules to curb profit shifting for tax avoidance by multinational firms. Bustos et al. (2023) analyzed a large reform in Chile based on these OECD standards and found that it led to a surge in tax advisory services. This paper investigates the external validity of this finding. Combining employment history data with⋯

This study contributes to the long-term care policy literature by exploring how, in an uncertain environment, redistributive tax policies and long-term care program design interact with informal care incentives, shaping long-term caregiving outcomes. The analysis is done within an overlapping-generations model in the steady state under full and asymetric information. Altruistic children provide in⋯

We formalize and estimate the dynamic marginal efficiency cost of redistribution (MECR) in the spirit of Okun’s “leaky bucket†to compare the MECR of an incomecontingent childcare subsidy program and of the income-contingent tax and transfer schedule. We set up a dynamic structural model of heterogeneous households choosing their childcare demand and maternal labor supply. Allowing for the av⋯

Discrete policy thresholds are pervasive in tax and regulatory systems and can substantially distort behavior. We show that notches acting as barriers to mobility within a distribution generate distortions extending far beyond the threshold. The same mechanism biases conventional difference-in-differences estimators, and we propose a new methodology to recover causal effects. Applying the method t⋯

We study how the specification of wage risk in quantitative life-cycle models changes the welfare evaluation of taxes and transfers. We estimate four wage processes: a canonical linear process, a flexible nonlinear process with age dependence, non-normality, and state-dependent persistence, and two intermediate processes; comparisons across the four isolate the role of each feature: age dependence⋯

Taxpayers rarely observe audit probabilities and must infer changes in enforcement from personal and social experience. We study this process in a laboratory tax-reporting experiment with 568 participants. Each participant faces hidden audit probabilities of 5 percent and 25 percent in randomized order, and we vary peer information across sessions from none to one or two preceding audit outcomes i⋯

We examine the intergenerational effect of education policy on crime. Using administrative data that links outcomes across generations with crime records, we show that the Swedish comprehensive school reform, gradually implemented between 1949 and 1962, reduced conviction rates for both the generation directly affected by the reform and their sons. The reduction in conviction rates occurred in s⋯

This paper develops a tractable model of offender location choice and police resource allocation across multiple areas. Individuals differ in the cost of apprehension and choose whether to commit crime and, if so, where. Each area contains a fixed value of criminal opportunities, so offenders impose congestion on one another, while policing affects expected apprehension. For arbitrary policing lev⋯

Decision-makers can exhibit biases when they overemphasize particularly salient features under limited attention. We exploit a sudden salience shock involving individuals of Moroccan descent to examine biases within the Dutch criminal justice system. The salience shock concerned the assassination of a defense attorney by organized crime and thus specifically targeted the justice system. Leveraging⋯

Research shows that lawyers affect legal outcomes, but little is known about how clients choose lawyers. We conduct an experiment with plaintiffs in the Mexico City Labor Court. We compare plaintiffs’ choice of lawyers in a control group and two treatment groups: one that increases the plaintiff’s knowledge of likely case outcomes and the other that facilitates meetings with public lawyers. Th⋯

Can the judiciary help root out government corruption? This paper exploits the random assignment of court cases to justices who exhibit varying degrees of strictness to examine how convicting corrupt officials affects local government outcomes in the Philippines. I document that convictions improve the management of local public finances and reduce associated corruption. An exploration of mechanis⋯

We develop a strategy to measure the economic costs of poorly written laws, a potential threat to the rule of law. Using the full corpus of Italian legislation, we show that legal uncertainty — measured by the probability of disagreement between the Supreme Court of Cassation and lower courts — is higher for cases involving poorly written laws and varies systematically across courts. To identi⋯

The paper evaluates the impact of the reform of the judicial map on the functioning of Italian civil justice. Implemented between 2013 and 2014, the reform abolished all branch offices and merged several small first-instance courts, substantially increasing the size of judicial districts and the scale at which civil justice services are provided. According to our findings, the reform led to a redu⋯

We examine the impact of whistleblowing protection laws on wages, integrating both theoretical and empirical perspectives. We find that strengthened legal protection leads to significant shifts in wage levels, highlighting an unexpected consequence of these legal changes. Specifically, companies with a history of misconduct may lower wages for their employees in response to enhanced whistleblower⋯

This paper examines the activity efficiency of competition authorities in Central and Eastern European countries by developing a simple, externally verifiable fine-to-budget indicator. The study focuses on the directly measurable segment of competition authority activity: competition-related fines imposed in the areas of abuse of dominance, cartels, and merger violations, relative to the budget al⋯

Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among people aged 5–29. Where traffic laws are weakly enforced, it is unclear whether road safety interventions can change behavior. We run a randomized controlled trial among 203 Kenyan minibuses, testing whether an incentive scheme improves safety overall or merely shifts unsafe driving to unmonitored times. Drivers reduce speeding by 29 perce⋯

This paper provides a full characterization of the competitive effects of horizontal mergers in the Cournot model with heterogeneous firms and constant marginal costs. We show that price effects depend only on the smaller merging firm's market share and the number of firms but are independent of the distribution of market shares among other firms. Standard concentration measures, instead, are ofte⋯

Asia remains a driving force behind global growth, trade, and innovation, but the foundations of its success are shifting. As trade fragments, populations age, and global shocks become more frequent, the region must adapt to a more uncertain world. Can artificial intelligence, digitalization, and deeper regional integration unlock Asia’s next chapter of growth? How can policymakers seize new oppor⋯

We explore the historical link between populist regimes, fiscal monetization, and inflation, and how these links affect monetary policy in the 21st century. Using data for a large set of advanced economies and emerging markets since 1960, we show that, historically, left-leaning populist regimes are linked to increases in central bank lending to the central government, a gauge of deficit monetizat⋯

This HLS summarizes IMF technical assistance provided to Angola on strengthening the management of VAT credits and refunds. The mission assessed the significant accumulation of excess VAT credits—equivalent to 0.5 percent of GDP—and identified structural, legal, operational, and compliance-related factors behind this build-up. The mission recommends strengthening the integrity of VAT credits and r⋯

A capacity development mission by the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) of the IMF was conducted in a hybrid format, comprising three activities between December 2024 and March 2025. The mission aimed to estimate the gap in the Tax on the Transfer of Industrialized Commodities and Services (ITBIS) using the VAT Gap Estimation Model (VGEM) under the Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP⋯

This technical assistance (TA) mission was conducted to support the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in developing a first-time Residential Property Price Index (RPPI) for Kenya. The mission focused on improving data collection, refining statistical compilation methods, and building capacity aligned with international best practices. The findings highlighted significant progress in stabi⋯

Selected Issues

The rapid uptake of Artificial Intelligence by Swedish enterprises is poised to reshape the country’s occupational landscape. While the technology offers substantial potential gains for Sweden’s workforce, more so than the EU on average, the associated labor displacement costs are likely to fall unevenly; Information Communication Technology professionals, less-educated workers, young people, and⋯

Botswana’s VAT performance has been steady as a share of GDP, averaging about 3-4 percent of GDP annually. An IMF CD mission in 2025-26 applied the RA-GAP top-down VAT gap model to Botswana’s data for 2017-2024 to estimate both the VAT compliance gap and policy gap. Botswana’s overall VAT gap is significant and rising, reaching 5.8 percent of GDP in 2024 (up from 4.9 percent in 2017). The increase⋯

This technical assistance report evaluates Ukraine’s Asset Declaration System (ADS) managed by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), focusing on its effectiveness in deterring corruption and verifying public officials’ asset declarations. The report finds that while Ukraine’s ADS is one of the largest and most advanced globally, it faces significant challenges related to the overwhe⋯

Selected Issues

This paper assesses the resilience of Ghana's banking system and the Bank of Ghana to severe and persistent gold price shocks. Despite stronger post-DDEP (Domestic Debt Exchange Program) capitalization, profitability, and liquidity, Ghana's dependence on gold exports exposes the financial system to commodity price volatility through exchange rate, inflation, fiscal, sovereign risk, and bank balanc⋯

We develop standardized time-series measures of shocks and uncertainty for output growth and inflation across 14 Asia-Pacific economies using data from Consensus Economics survey of professional economic forecasters. They are based on changes in mean forecasts and standard deviations, adjusted for intra-year patterns that arise from the annual-average percent changes basis of the data. As an examp⋯

The deadline for online registration for this year’s in-person Public Forum, which will take place on 15, 16 and 17 September, is 21 August 2026 (23.59 CET). Late and onsite registrations will not be accepted.

On 5 August 2026, the United Kingdom notified the WTO’s Committee on Safeguards that it had initiated, on the same day, a safeguard investigation on imports of certain polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The WTO will host the first World Trade and Tech Day on 14 September at its headquarters in Geneva, bringing together trade and information and communications technology (ICT) policymakers, industry leaders and other stakeholders to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) strategies can better support economies' efforts to maximize the gains of international trade.

World merchandise trade growth exceeded expectations in the first quarter of 2026 as surging trade in electronic components related to artificial intelligence (AI) offset the negative impact of the conflict in the Middle East, which began in the final month of the quarter. Trade disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are expected to be more fully captured in trade data for the next quarter.

Brazil has requested WTO dispute consultations with the United States regarding additional US duties on products originating in Brazil as a result of two investigations by the United States under Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974. Brazil said the additional duties are above the duties otherwise applicable under the US harmonized tariff schedule. The request was circulated to WTO members on 3⋯

On 28 July, the WTO circulated the panel report in the case brought by China in "Türkiye — Measures Concerning Electric Vehicles and Other Types of Vehicles from China" (DS629).

Lithuania is contributing EUR 30,000 (approximately CHF 28,000) in 2026 to finance training programmes for government officials from developing economies, including least-developed countries (LDCs). This contribution to the WTO Global Trust Fund will support these economies in deepening their expertise on WTO issues and help them participate more effectively in the rules-based multilateral trading⋯

Uzbekistan reaffirmed its determination to complete its WTO accession process within 2026 at a meeting of the Working Party on the Accession of Uzbekistan on 27 and 28 July, soon after its last meeting in March. The head of Uzbekistan's delegation, Chief Negotiator Azizbek Urunov, stressed that maintaining a strong pace of engagement and addressing members' remaining concerns will be critical to b⋯

On 14 August 2026, the European Commission published a series of ten guidance documents to help non-EU operators with the implementation of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) during its definitive period.

On Thursday 16 July 2026, DG TAXUD hosted the third in a series of webinars on the implementation of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

A European Commission report published today on customs controls at the EU’s external borders highlights the need for stronger controls and enhanced cooperation to help protect consumers and businesses in the EU internal market.

From 1 July 2026, the EU will apply a temporary €3 customs duty per item on low-value consignments (up to €150) imported from outside the EU, abolishing the duty exemption applicable until 30 June 2026.

The European Commission welcomes today’s Decision adopted by the EU-Türkiye Customs Cooperation Committee (CCC) to mutually recognise the respective Authorised Economic Operator programmes (AEO MRA).

The European Commission has presented its Annual Report on Taxation (ART), offering a detailed overview of taxation policies in all EU countries. This report assesses recent trends in EU tax systems and identifies ways to enhance compliance.

The 9th Seminar of European Customs Chemists (9SECC) took place in Stockholm, Sweden, from 1 to 3 July 2026 under the theme ‘Fostering Unity in Uncertain Times’.

As of 1 July 2026, two amendments introduced by Commission Implementing Regulation 2026/1422 amending the Union Customs Code Implementing Regulation (UCC‑IA) to the procedural rules relating to non-preferential proofs of origin are applicable.

Starting today, the EU abolishes an outdated customs duty exemption for e-commerce packages worth less than €150. The measure will help to ensure fair conditions for EU businesses and safe choices for consumers, in response to the surge of billions of low-value e-commerce goods entering the EU.

The European Commission adopted an ambitious tax simplification package that includes two legislative proposals aimed at simplifying EU tax rules, reducing compliance burdens for businesses, and strengthening the competitiveness of the Internal Market.

The Implementation Dialogue on the EU Customs Reform, held on 8 June 2026 under the chairmanship of Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, brought together representatives from industry, trade associations, and the Commission to discuss the practical aspects of implementing the recently agreed Customs Reform.

The European Commission welcomes the Council agreement to extend the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to specific downstream goods and reinforce existing anti-circumvention safeguards.

The new public country-by-country reporting regimes adopted by the EU and Australia, and changes from the Financial Accounting Standards Board for financial accounts, are meant to promote transparency by multinational enterprises but have ubiquitous structural differences.

Poland has one of the most restrictive approaches to the tax treatment of losses in the OECD. Loss carryover provisions allow businesses to deduct their losses in one year against taxable income in another, smoothing their taxable income over time. Their absence or restriction leads to firms with more variable profits and losses over time being taxed at higher rates, penalizing risky investment, s⋯

While uncapping the payroll tax and raising individual income tax rates are often the go-to reform options for policymakers, base broadeners like ESI and other fringe benefits are much better alternatives. They can raise significant revenue, while improving the neutrality of the tax code and preventing the need for increases in statutory tax rates.

When thinking about taxes, we often consider the tax rate—or what percentage of something is taxed. But there is another factor in considering taxes: the tax base.

Privacy concerns are a primary driver of opposition to vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax systems, but VMT taxes do not need to invade drivers’ privacy to efficiently fund the roads.

The Maryland Tax Court has struck down the state’s digital advertising tax and ordered that refunds be paid to taxpayers for five and a half years’ worth of collections under the unconstitutional tax.

In June, the Dominican Republic rushed through a package of tax legislation in seven days. International examples demonstrate that consultation, transparency, and clarity are key factors for successful tax reform.

As the market share of electric vehicles (EVs) on the road grows, the gas tax’s ability to fund road projects and decrease traffic congestion erodes. Both federal and state real tax revenue per vehicle mile traveled has been on a steady decline for decades, creating a fiscal gap for road expenditures even as the demand for road infrastructure improvements has grown.

US policymakers have put forward two new tax proposals to address concerns about how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact land, energy, and the workforce.

If Canada doesn’t make these provisions permanent, it will drop to 12th place in the capital cost recovery ranking once provisions expire in 2034.

Poland taxes its individual business owners through alternative regimes and a series of thresholds, several of them sharp notches that imply significant tax costs for businesses crossing them.

The California Billionaire Tax Act (Proposition 40), which imposes a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires’ net worth, is vulnerable to numerous constitutional challenges, any of which could invalidate the tax in whole or in part.

How worried should we be?

I am reporting for duty

What doth it profit a man if he sell his soul and can’t even manipulate the 30-year?

Don’t let the Very Serious People undermine a progressive agenda — again

Interest rates are up — but don’t panic

North Korea is the worst government on Earth; Trump prefers it to the prosperous democracy next door

Why Trump is eviscerating the military

Why the American jobs machine is sputtering

What tax history teaches us about this dire moment

Mandates vs options: The good, the bad, and the feasible

This is your economy on crack (spread)

Why MAGA wants children to get sick and die

1. New publication analyzing AI constitutions. 2. Niall Ferguson vs. Iain Banks, and against some other stufff too (TFP). 3. NYT obituary for Victor Niederhoffer. 4. “Engineered systems known as harnesses largely complete contracts in real time, make external work more observable than employment, and carry context and control across the firm’s edge.” (speculative) 5. […] The post Saturday assorted⋯

This study examines how Americans’ time with friends has changed over the week, focusing not on how much social interaction has declined but on when it has. Using American Time Use Survey data from 2003 to 2024 (N = 243,095), I map hourly patterns of “friend time” across the days of the week. In the […] The post The End of Friday Nights with Friends appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION .

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with her. She has a new and very interesting book coming out, namely The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time―and How to Fix It. More generally, from Wikipedia: Annie M. Lowrey…is an American journalist who writes on politics and economic policy for The Atlantic. Previously, Lowrey covered economic […] The post What should I ask Annie Lowrey? appeared fir⋯

The post This brew, at least, is from Ashburn, Virginia appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION .

1. Profile of Julian Gough and his evolutionary cosmology. And the Substack version. 2. New Spanish-language edition of Bioy Casares on Borges coming out. The older edition was, among other things, too heavy to lug around or bring on a trip. 3. The market for data is the market of the future. 4. If Uzbekistan […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION .

My latest paper (with Cason and Zubrickas) has just been published by the Journal of Urban Economics. We show that refund bonuses can indeed improve the holdout problem. Abstract: The holdout problem presents a pervasive challenge in situations that require the assembly of independently controlled assets, where due to complementarity the combined whole is worth […] The post Breaking Ground: Can Re⋯

Two hours, thirty-four minutes, Rick and I recorded this session not too long ago in Tuscany. It was everything Rick wanted to ask. Self-recommending of course, and there is more to come. The post Rick Rubin podcasts with me appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION .

Early signs of tech-driven improvements in productivity growth could herald a sustained strengthening in the UK’s economic outlook, analysts have said, in a turnaround after years of underperformance. Private sector productivity grew by 1.8 per cent in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, up from 1.2 per cent previously, according to analysis of […] The post Green shoots for the UK? ap⋯

Trump is giving economists something to write papers about: U.S. tariff rates in 2025 rose to levels not seen since the Great Depression, yet imports increased. To account for the missing trade collapse, we develop an open-economy New Keynesian model with tariff heterogeneity, inventories, and shocks to investment that capture the AI-driven boom. The model […] The post More evidence on the effects⋯

A new short documentary (22 mins) film called The 22nd Century Indian by Shaurya Sinha offers an optimistic take on India, and also covers five (!) Emergent Ventures winners. Congratulations to them, and to Shruti too. EV India winners featured: Naman Pushp https://x.com/therealnamzoo?s=11 Khushi Mittal: https://khushimittal.com Shreeporna Rao: https://x.com/shreepoorna365?s=11 Samay Sanghvi: http⋯

1. This guy is productive. Yes very productive. 2. “Mercor is building a network of experienced data scientists for potential future projects with leading AI research organizations.” And The New Statesman covers the poetry project. 3. How did the English build such beautiful villages? 4. Two Percent Podcast with Tyler Cowen, fifty-two minutes, we discuss […] The post Thursday assorted links appear⋯

The Everyday Abundance podcast explores the hidden histories behind everyday activities and the technologies we don’t even know are technologies. Virginia Postrel and Charles C. Mann dive into the surprising stories behind everything from brushing your teeth to driving your car. Listen, subscribe, and rate us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Here […]⋯

It does not require great originality nor insightfulness to contrast the world of the 1990s and that of today.

On a new film about the Reagan-Gorbachev 1986 summit in Reykjavik

Why are rich not consuming?

Re-reading Richard Pipes’ "The Formation of the Soviet Union"

A quick reply to Alex Callinicos

A four-class society (a long read)

How Western capitalists use China-bashing to deflect attention from their soaring profits

Dearth of Chinese lessons for the rest of the world

US long term interest rates are surging.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna just introduced a bill proposing a permanent national 5% wealth tax on billionaires, along with an ambitious spending program for the results.

Today, a few small recent economic news items add up to a bigger picture.

Inflation is stubbornly high, and the Fed mulls whether to raise rates.

I prepared two “weekly rants” on AI which will come out in a few weeks.

This is an essay I wrote for Hoover’s Freedom Frequency substack, in their series on the founders.

Follow the money past the initial recipient.

I wrote two opeds on the future of the Fed for the Washington Post. Full text of the first one, focusing on monetary policy, in my previous post here. The second focusing on financial regulation is joint with Amit Seru.

Introducing AI Futures, a new OpenAI blog exploring how transformative AI could reshape power, governance, the economy, and individual freedom.

With a fixed deadline and design resources committed elsewhere, Stampli used Codex and ChatGPT Work to compress weeks of launch production into days.

OpenAI reaffirms Zero Data Retention for eligible API customers and previews Private Safety Processing for advanced AI safety without compromising data privacy.

Replit introduces Free Mode, powered by GPT-5.6 Luna, so anyone can turn ideas into working software without worrying about token costs.

ChatGPT Ads is expanding to 31 European markets. Learn how advertisers can reach people as they explore, compare options, and make decisions.

OpenAI launches an initiative to strengthen democratic oversight of AI in national security, supporting government institutions with tools, training, and expertise.

OpenAI and CodeAI are partnering to help students build AI literacy, think critically about AI, and develop the skills to use and shape it responsibly.

OpenAI is strengthening monitoring, alignment, and security for frontier AI models. See how new safeguards are guiding the pace of model development.

Google DeepMind partners with game studios to prototype breakthrough AI gameplay.

Introducing sign-language-to-text (SL2T), our breakthrough model powering new sign language features for Deaf and hard of hearing users.

Gemini Robotics ER 2 helps robots reason, collaborate, and solve real-world tasks. It represents a step change in video understanding, tool orchestration, and multi-robot collaboration for robotic applications.

Google commits $40M in AI tokens and credits for the Genesis Mission

What's changed Bug fixes and reliability improvements

What's changed Cost estimates ( /cost , status line, --max-budget-usd ) now include the 1.1× US-only-inference premium for data-residency workspaces Added the one-time fullscreen renderer offer on Bedrock, Vertex, Foundry and other previously excluded setups; new installs there now start in fullscreen Added /claude-api upgrade to migrate Python projects from anthropic 0.x to 1.x, and updated the s⋯

What's changed Added a keybindingFlavor setting: set it to "readline" to make Ctrl+W in the prompt delete back to the previous whitespace, as in Bash; the default ( "classic" ) is unchanged Plugin marketplaces: headersHelper on a url marketplace or a catalog entry runs a command that mints HTTP headers (e.g. a short-lived token) for catalog and same-origin archive fetches A catalog entry's headers⋯

What's changed Fixed prompt caching for sessions using an LLM gateway or custom base URL Added a built-in "Concise" output style: Claude leads with results and skips preamble and narration, while doing the work just as thoroughly. Select it under Output style in /config.

What's changed Added ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_MODEL environment variable: sets the model new sessions start on, while a /model pick still overrides it and persists across restarts (unlike ANTHROPIC_MODEL ) Added notify_when_idle to cross-session SendMessage : ask another Claude Code session on this machine to send one notice when it next goes idle — opt-in, one-shot, no polling (macOS and Linux) Sandbox:⋯

What's changed Added an optional spellcheck setting that underlines misspelled words in the prompt input as you type, using your installed aspell , hunspell , or ispell Fixed whole-prompt-cache invalidation when a language server disconnected or reconnected mid-session Fixed nested markdown list items misaligning at depth 3+ and added a hanging indent to wrapped list items in the terminal UI Fixed⋯

I trained a 250M parameter model from scratch on 30B tokens of fineweb. It’s quantized to under 2 bits so the whole deployment is 60 MB and it needs about 80 MB of RAM to run. Runs around 400 tok/s on a normal laptop CPU, no GPU needed. How the long context works: the most recent 2048 tokens stay in fp16 like a normal KV cache. Everything older gets compressed to 1 bit and written to disk, about 3⋯

LLMs are too verbose and with a black box model the only things you control are what goes in and how you tell it to write back. Yesterday Claude Code shipped a "concise output style" where Claude keeps things short. We already have a paper out about this! We tested both channels, shortening the input prompt versus telling the model to output answer shorter, on the same questions across five reduct⋯

So got selected for a research internship at MSR, how good is the quality of work and how useful is it to move to Applied sciences or research sciences position at other FAANG companies after the internship. And any perks and other benefits that interns get during microsoft internship? Any tips will be appreciated. Specifically to get into AS at amazon , does this boost my chances? I'll be joining⋯

Experienced folks!! Do u think it is worth attending the conference for findings. I do want to. But when I saw that it is not mandatory for findings, I was a bit hesitant. This is my first time having a paper accepted at an AI conference. Just wanna hear opinions/experiences Thanks in advance.

So I got rejected at EMNLP with scores:- Meta: 3 (very positive in the review) Reviewers: OA(conf) 3(4) 3(4) 2.5(3) Avg: 2.83(3.67) Track: multimodality Rebuttals never got any acknowledgements. Most weaknesses were already discussed in the paper. What are my options now? As it was my first paper (solo as well). - If I want to commit to NACL in December. Do i need ti submit to acl arr again or can⋯

I have built an on-prem GPU cluster, 8 nvidia 16GB GPU's and 256GB CPU RAM, 50TB HDD and several TBs of SSDs. I have used it, and currently use it, for ML/AI research. But that research is not constantly running jobs, sometimes I use it heavily and other times it's idle. I was considering just letting people with qualified use cases run jobs on it SLURM style. I don't know if its enough compute to⋯

Putting normative arguments pointing out how regressive it would be, we know they are the least distortive. Under such a tax system, wouldn’t the economy grow more and we will all be better off than the current complex tax system we have?

Every time I've moved I've found it shocking how little my used furniture is worth. I'm pretty sure you could: Drive to IKEA in the suburbs Bring a box into the city Assemble the furniture Sell it And you would be lucky to get half of your money back. What are the economic phenomena at work causing this?

I learned in my basic economics class that banks create money by issuing loans. People put their money in the bank and said bank keeps a ledger of how much money each person has. In the past, the money was physical, which meant that the ledger and money were separate things. This means that when a bank "created" money with loans they were changing the ledger, and stating on it that, in total, thei⋯

The US spends far more on healthcare than countries such as the UK, Switzerland and Japan without achieving obviously better health outcomes. However, it is also the world's largest pharmaceutical market and a major source of biomedical R&D. Does this create a global benefit? For example, US patients and insurers pay much higher drug prices, potentially making pharmaceutical R&D more profitable, w⋯

I've read some of Good Economics for Hard Times, which bridges the gap between the median voter and economists. When asked to rank professionals by how much they trusted them, most people put economists in second-to-last place, beating only politicians. Why do you think this is?