Do country borders impede regional trade flows within Europe?
Marta Santamaría, Jaume Ventura, and Uğur Yeşilbayraktar use a newly created dataset to estimate the average border effect on trade between European regions.
Video: Globalization, Economic Policy and Political Structure (ERC Advanced Grant)
Jaume Ventura talks about the objectives, challenges, and potential impact of his ERC Advanced Grant Project.
How Sovereign Debt Accelerated the First Industrial Revolution
Could the massive wartime debt accumulated by Britain’s government in the 18th and 19th centuries have helped the country industrialize first and become the world’s leading economy? Given the customary association of debt with dissipation and ruin, this may come across as an unlikely proposition, yet this is exactly the story that Jaume Ventura and Hans-Joachim Voth have found in the historical evidence.
Managing credit bubbles
Barcelona GSE research on VoxEU.org by Alberto Martín and Jaume Ventura
There is a widespread view among macroeconomists that fluctuations in collateral are an important driver of credit booms and busts. This column distinguishes between ‘fundamental’ collateral – backed by expectations of future profits – and ‘bubbly’ collateral – backed by expectations of future credit. Markets are generically unable to provide the optimal amount of bubbly collateral, which creates a natural role for stabilisation policies. A lender of last resort with the ability to tax and subsidise credit can design a ‘leaning against the wind’ policy that replicates the ‘optimal’ bubble allocation.
