Department of Economics Working Paper Series, 278, 2019

Greece as a bridge to the most vibrant region of the next decades

Aiginger, Karl

Abstract: In the years following the financial crisis, Greece experienced a severe loss in real per capita income and accumulated a public debt much higher than GDP and that of any other EU country. The article briefly analyses the causes of this development, including the policy failures of Greece and the EU. It develops a game-changing strategy, which could return the country to a growth path. This starts with the vision that Greece can make use of its unique location between Europe, Asia and Africa to build a bridge connecting these regions with fascinating and productive complementarities. Given this new strategy, including regional leadership in decarbonisation, youth reform boards, and the Greek diaspora as a manager of reforming and financing new activities, Europe should cut a substantial part of the debt. This would be in the interest of Greece, the EU and Europe's neighbours.

The full paper is available under http://epub.wu.ac.at/6816/1/wp278.pdf

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Department of Economics Working Paper Series, 279, 2019

Housing Rent Dynamics and Rent Regulation in St. Petersburg (1880-1917)

Kholodilin, Konstantin A.; Limonov, Leonid E.; Waltl, Sofie R.

Abstract: This article studies the evolution of housing rents in St. Petersburg between 1880 and 1917 covering an eventful period of Russian and world history. We collect and digitize over 5,000 rental advertisements from historic newspapers, which we use together with geo-coded addresses and detailed structural characteristics to construct a quality-adjusted rent price index in continuous time. We provide the first pre-war and pre-Soviet index based on market data for any Russian housing market. In 1915, one of the world's earliest rent control and tenant protection policies was introduced as a response to soaring prices following the outbreak of World War I. We analyze the impact of this policy: while before the regulation rents were increasing at a similar rapid pace as other consumer prices, the policy reversed this trend. We find evidence for official compliance with the policy, document a rise in tenure duration and strongly increased rent affordability among workers after the introduction of the policy. We conclude that the immediate prelude to the October Revolution was indeed characterized by economic turmoil, but rent affordability and rising rents were no longer the prevailing problems.

The full paper is available under http://epub.wu.ac.at/6817/1/wp279.pdf