Ralph De Haas

@ralphdehaas.bsky.social

410 followers 380 following 31 posts

EBRD’s Director of Research, CEPR Research Fellow, part-time Professor of Finance at KU Leuven. 🇳🇱🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺. Views are my own.

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Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

New paper alert! 🚨 With Juanita Gonzalez-Uribe, we review what works (and what doesn't) in public policies for private finance across 7 major intervention types.

Published in Annual Review of Financial Economics.

Key findings👇 (1/n)

Reposted by Ralph De Haas

VoxEU @ CEPR @voxeu.org · 23d

While migration can partly offset population ageing, the scale required to fully offset the expected demographic drags substantially exceeds historical experience. Pablo García Guzmán, Federica Coelli, and Emily Nilsson examine the constraints.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

This chart shows the annualised net migration rates required to maintain constant ratios of working-age population (aged 15-64) to total population at 2023 levels, expressed as a percentage of mid-year 2023 population. Historical flows represent the average annual net migration flow between 2011 and 2019 as a percentage of mid-year 2010 population.

Declining fertility and population ageing are set to weigh on growth by shrinking the share of working-age adults across the globe. This column quantifies the immigration flows required to prevent working-age population ratios from declining and examines constraints on migration's capacity to fully offset the negative effects of demographic change on economic growth in the economies where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests and beyond.

Reposted by Ralph De Haas

VoxEU @ CEPR @voxeu.org · 24d

Closing gender employment gaps and raising elderly labour market participation could substantially mitigate projected employment-to-population ratio declines in many ageing societies.
P García Guzmán & F Coelli @ebrd.bsky.social, E Nilsson @warwickecon.bsky.social
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

This chart shows employment-to-population ratios for the population aged 15+ across three scenarios for 2050 compared with historical levels in 2000 and 2023. The baseline scenario applies current 2023 age-specific employment rates by five-year age group to projected 2050 demographic structures using UN WPP medium variant projections. The “gender gains” scenario builds on the baseline by reducing gender employment gaps within each age group to the lower of the current gap and the 25th percentile of the age-specific cross-country distribution of gender employment gaps in OECD countries for 2023. The “gender and ageing gains” scenario combines the gender gap adjustment with rising employment rates for workers aged 60-64 and 65+, which increase to the higher of current rates and the 75th percentile of the age-specific cross-country distribution of employment rates in OECD countries for 2023.

Declining working-age populations are set to weigh on growth across economies where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests and beyond, with demographic projections suggesting substantial declines in employment-to-population ratios. This column describes how closing gender employment gaps and raising elderly labour market participation could substantially mitigate these projected declines in many ageing societies, but the scope for such gains varies across countries. Realising these gains would require coordinated policy interventions across childcare provision, pension reform, workplace flexibility, and re-skilling programmes.

Reposted by Ralph De Haas, Antonio Fatás

VoxEU @ CEPR @voxeu.org · 25d

F Coelli, P García Guzmán, & E Nilsson discuss the macroeconomic impacts of ageing & how many regions are getting older before getting richer. Policy solutions include labour force participation by women & older adults, tech for productivity, & increased migration.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

Notes: Lines represent population-weighted averages. “Advanced economies” are those classified as high income by the World Bank’s income classification in 1990 with data available for 1870-2023. The “EBRD post-communist” grouping comprises 26 post-communist economies in the EBRD regions. SEMED comprises Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. SSA comprises Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
Source: Gapminder, World Bank WDIs, and authors’ calculations.

With fertility rates falling and populations ageing worldwide, the impact of demographic change on economic prosperity has become a central policy concern. This column uses a neoclassical growth model to quantify the economic cost of ageing in the economies where the EBRD invests and beyond. It contrasts the headwinds facing emerging Europe with the potential demographic dividend in Central Asia and Africa, highlighting that rapid fertility declines are quickly narrowing this window of opportunity.

Reposted by Ralph De Haas

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

Priority gaps: Public lending through private banks as well as subsidized credit remain understudied. And we still don't know enough about how different policies interact with each other. Full paper:

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... (9/9)

www.annualreviews.org

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

🔬 Bottom line: We need more rigorous evaluation (especially RCTs and quasi-experimental designs), better measurement of spillovers and long-term effects, and greater use of structural models for counterfactual analysis (8/n)

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

Publicly backed VC & tax incentives: Most controversial. Government-sponsored GPs often underperform private ones, though recent China evidence suggests they may foster innovation despite lower financial returns (7/n)

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

🏦 State banks: Can support growth & employment, especially during crises. But highly susceptible to political interference.

🌍 Export credit agencies: Limited but promising evidence. EXIM Bank shutdown in US showed these can matter for exports, especially for financially constrained firms (6/n)

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

Strongest evidence: Credit guarantee schemes have been extensively studied with quasi-experimental methods. Generally positive effects on SME credit access, though impact on defaults varies.

Microcredit: lots of RCTs, showing limited impact on profits/income (5/n)

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

Beware the downsides. Fiscal costs, distorted incentives, and crowding out private finance are real risks. E.g., credit guarantees during COVID-19 showed both benefits *and* substitution effects(4/n)

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

Well-designed policies *can* alleviate financial constraints and promote firm growth, especially for SMEs. But effectiveness is highly context-dependent. One-size-fits-all approaches don't work (3/n)

Ralph De Haas @ralphdehaas.bsky.social · Nov 17

We assess state banks, development banks, public lending through private banks, subsidized credit, credit guarantees, export credit agencies, publicly backed VC, and tax incentives for equity investors.

The evidence? Mixed but increasingly rigorous (2/n)

Reposted by Ralph De Haas

Reposted by Ralph De Haas, Paulo Gala

Reposted by Ralph De Haas

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