AI has the potential to fuel historic levels of wealth concentration, leaving workers behind while a handful of companies profit. Or we can choose policies that steer us toward shared prosperity. The future is still up to us.

We analyze the impact of negative reference rates on the interest rate behavior of more than 500 Austrian banks from 2009Q1 to 2021Q4. Using panel vector error correction analysis with the Engle-Granger procedure in two steps, we establish a cointegration vector that links bank-specific lending rates, deposit rates, the 3-month Euribor, and the ECB Deposit Facility Rate. We propose two hypotheses to evaluate the effects of negative 3-month Euribor on this vector.

We usually think of workplace deviance as linked to “bad apples”–the troublemakers who egregiously slack off, steal from the company or openly clash with coworkers. But what if deviant behaviour was also more subtle–daydreaming, taking long coffee breaks or cracking an edgy joke in a meeting? It turns out most employees engage in quieter patterns of minor misbehaviours, and it’s changing how we think about deviance on the job.

Are restrictions on fiscal policy necessary for monetary policy to be able to deliver price stability? When households are Ricardian, the net present value of future fiscal surpluses needs to equate the real value of government debt absent inflation. We show that when households are not Ricardian, fiscal requirements still exist but take the very different form of a limit on the debt-to-GDP ratio.