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This weekly press briefing highlights some of the latest research reports, discussion papers and other publications from CEPR. It also features some of the latest columns on VoxEU, as well as new blogs/reviews, audio interviews and short films.
A study in Spain by Esther Arenas-Arroyo, Daniel Fernández Kranz and Natalia Nollenberger reveals that access to high-speed internet has significantly impacted mental health among girls aged 15 to 19. Rates of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts have been rising in several countries, and the addictive use of the internet is contributing to this trend. The study suggests that teenagers are spending less time on healthy activities as a result of their internet usage. The findings underscore the need for policy interventions to address the impact of online media on adolescent mental health.
A study by Marta Angelici, Paolo Berta, Joan Costa-i-Font and Gilberto Turati compares the experiences of Italy and Spain during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, examining the advantages and disadvantages of regional autonomy versus centralised control. The findings show that centralisation can have a penalty when it comes to information sharing, experimentation, and addressing specific regional needs. Italy's coordinated approach with regional governments allowed for more experimentation and the ability to produce policy information that could be used across the country. In contrast, Spain's single central command limited experimentation and the ability to tailor policies to regional needs.
In recent decades, leading US firms have gained substantial market shares in many industries, and this trend is reflected in the rising concentration of local sales, while local employment concentration has fallen. A study by David Autor, Christina Patterson and John Van Reenen shows that a shift from manufacturing to services is driving these changes. Simultaneously, both employment and sales concentration have risen within local industry-county cells.
Sustainability reporting is on the rise, but it's currently only available for the largest companies. Writing at VoxEU, Szilard Erhart and Kornél Erhart offer a new solution that combines pollution observations with environmental footprint models to provide an assessment of corporate sustainability. A key finding is that electricity production companies have the largest potential for global warming and human toxicity impacts. However, the authors caution that carbon footprint is just one aspect of a company's environmental performance.
In its proposal for the next revision of the Growth and Stability Pact, the European Commission takes two steps. The first is to shift the focus away from year-by-year evolution of national public finances to a longer-term view aligned with the concept of sustainability. The second is to attribute a central role to the expenditure benchmark in assessing the fiscal policy stance. Writing at VoxEU, Charles Wyplosz argues that the expenditure benchmark is quite similar to the usual measure of the fiscal stance, the change in the cyclically adjusted primary balance, but with several arbitrary elements that mix up cyclical adjustments and normative judgement.
Climate change can have significant impacts, particularly on vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and tourism. This first column in a two-part series by Matteo Alpino, Luca Citino, Guido de Blasio and Federica Zeni introduces a recent Bank of Italy research project that highlights the potential consequences of extreme weather events and rising temperatures on various socioeconomic outcomes. The findings suggest the presence of regional differences in the magnitude of these impacts.
EU countries have pledged to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but achieving this goal solely through market forces is unlikely. This second of two columns reporting results from a Bank of Italy research project examines crucial policies that are under public scrutiny. The findings reveal that policymakers can play a critical role in mitigating emissions and addressing the distributional consequences of doing so.
Why do some firms choose to cluster together while others stay apart? A new study by René Belderbos, Kyoji Fukao, Kenta Ikeuchi, YoungGak Kim and Hyeog Ug Kwon sheds light on this question by examining the location decisions of Japanese multi-plant firms. The study finds that more productive firms are more likely to locate in industry clusters, where they can benefit from agglomeration externalities such as shared infrastructure and specialised labour. However, negative sorting and adverse selection effects can also occur, as firms may face direct competition from rivals in the same product market.
The study concludes that policies that provide incentives to attract highly productive firms to industrial clusters are needed to maximise the benefits of agglomeration and support economic growth. This research has important implications for policymakers and business leaders seeking to foster innovation and competitiveness in their regions.
The €-coin indicator rose in September (to -0.18, from -0,34 in August), while still confirming the underlying weakness in euro-area activity.