Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth in OECD Countries

This article examines whether the efficiency gains accompanying fiscal decentralization generate higher growth in more decentralized economies, applying pooled-mean group techniques to a panel dataset of 23 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, 1972–2005. We find that spending decentralization has tended to be associated with lower economic growth while revenue decentralization has been associated with higher growth. Since OECD countries are substantially more spending than revenue decentralized, this is consistent with Oates' (1972) hypothesis that maximum efficiency gains require a close match between spending and revenue decentralization. It suggests reducing expenditure decentralization, and simultaneously increasing the fraction financed locally, would be growth-enhancing. 

That is from a paper by Norman Gemmell, Richard Kneller, and Ismael Sanz. A draft is here. 

Explaining suicide (OECD)

The socio-economic determinants of suicide rates might be different across regions of the world. In a recent study by Okada & Samreth published in the JSE (August 2013) the authors find that the divorce rate affects the suicide rate positively and that increases in GDP per capita reduce the suicide rate. 

From the conclusions: 

Our estimation results provide strong evidence that divorce rates and per capita real GDP have significantly increasing and reducing impacts on suicide, respectively, since their effects are confirmed in nine out of 13 selected countries. For fertility rates, the results show that its increase leads to a decrease in suicide rates in four countries and a rise in suicide rates in one country. As for per capita alcohol consumption, we obtain evidence supporting its significantly increasing effects only in three countries.

A draft is here. 

In Italy a higher amount of suicides has been linked to the recent economic recession.