Brown bag seminar

The 7th Brown Bag Seminar will be held on Thursday, November 8, 2018, at Hall 51 at the Faculty of Economics, Zagreb, starting at 2:00 pm.
The presentation will be held by Assistant Professor Vladimir Arčabić (Department of Macroeconomics and Economic Development). He will present work Fiscal Convergence and Sustainability in the European Union. This paper has won the regular prize of the “Prof. dr. sc. Marijan Hanžeković” Endowment for 2018.
 
Short summary of the presentation:
The paper analyzes fiscal convergence and sustainability in the European Union using public debt data, revenues and expenditures. There is absolute fiscal divergence in the EU, which is particularly pronounced after the debt crisis. However, there is fiscal convergence among the clubs when the clubs are endogenous. Convergence clubs are important for the EU, because there is no single fiscal policy, but the policies of the member states are heterogeneous. Endogenous convergence clubs do not have the usual geographic, political or developmental similarities. Fiscal policy in the EU is not sustainable, but it is contracutaneous. The paper uses a fiscal response function according to which the primary surplus is the public debt function and the GDP gap. The primary surplus does not respond to changes in public debt, which is considered to be long-term unsustainable. However, the primary surplus is increasing in expansions and decreasing in recession, which is about contra circular fiscal policy. Contra circular primary surplus is important for mitigating business cycles. 

The Brown Bag Seminar (BBS) is an informal one-hour workshop with aim to presenting research in different stages of design (ideas, rounded theoretical framework, conducted empirical research, etc.), promoting discussion and creating a stimulating environment focused on constructive discussion between exhibitors and the rest of participants of the seminar. The basic idea of the BBS is to create a platform where, at least once a month, FEB employees will have the opportunity to present the ideas and articles they work on within their scientific-research work.
 
We invite you to respond and help with your constructive comments to exhibitors, and expose the topics you are currently working on, unpublished works or present the research ideas you are thinking about.