Hellenic Parliament

We study the dynamic effects of the adoption of macroprudential policies on income inequality over the period 1990 - 2015. We utilize local projections for horizons up to 5 years, and we document that the implementation of borrower-targeted MAPs increases income inequality since they pose obstacles to the access to credit based on household-specific characteristics; however, some financial institutions-targeted instruments (i.e., capital and reserve requirements) lead to a more equal income distribution.

The article describes the evolution of an innovative legal interoperability laboratory within the National School of Public Administration and Local Government in Athens, Greece. While critically analysing its general scope, objectives and structure, the knowledge management perspective of an interoperable legal informatics solution for handling big open legal data is brought into focus. In the context of the laboratory, the use of Legislation Editing Open Software (LEOS), a legal informatics tool that has been developed as a European Union ISA2 solution, is highlighted. Different aspects of and lessons learned from the training of public administrators are discussed while assessing this operations support system for potential use as a web-based authoring tool by the Hellenic public service. The evaluation of both the laboratory and the tool was conducted based on expert surveys, and possible upgrades are discussed to make the training of public administration more efficient.

This paper investigates the short-run effects of fiscal consolidation on various macroeconomic aggregates in a group of 24 OECD economies from 1990 to 2019.The empirical findings suggest that an unanticipated fiscal consolidation shock is contractionary. The effects are more pronounced in recessions, in high debt countries, in closed economies and when monetary conditions are tight. Consequently, in these cases, the decline of the public debt ratio is more subdued. Spending-based adjustments that are implemented in recessions, in periods with tight monetary conditions and when the debt ratio is above 80% are self-defeating. Fiscal consolidations that are initiated in expansions, in cases of low debt ratios, when monetary conditions are loose and in open economies can be expansionary and lead to a more pronounced decline in the debt ratio. This is particularly true for spending-based adjustments that are initiated in expansions and in periods with loose monetary conditions. These findings are particularly relevant in the current adverse macroeconomic environment as they can help in the design of an effective fiscal consolidation programme.

The Greek Law 4622/2019 on the Executive State codified existing regulations, guidelines and good practices in the governance of the Hellenic Republic. It has a profound impact in the lawmaking process as it attempts to control the quality of legislation and increase the efficiency in its implementation. The article proposes legal interoperability patterns that are based on existing standards and digital solutions to support the development of an ecosystem of key legal documents and related government services. In effect, it enables the follow-up of enacted legislation by interlinking laws with related bylaws, administrative documents and judicial decisions, thus offering a real time capturing of the state of law implementation. The proposed design takes into consideration existing solutions on the European and national level to come up with a state of the art concept of a legal interoperability space for the Greek public administration. In this regard, boundary conditions are set and a range of research questions for further discussion are proposed.

We assess whether monetary policymakers follow systemic risk in adjusting monetary policy for the US. over a period spanning from 1960 to 2011. We evaluate the reactions of monetary policy variables during the corresponding periods of high and low systemic risk. We estimate a threshold Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model and provide evidence that U.S. monetary policy is affected by systemic risk measured by CATFIN proposed by Allen et al. (Review of Financial Studies 25(10): 3000–3036, 2012). This effect is asymmetric between periods of high systemic risk and periods of low systemic risk. The threshold value of CATFIN is in the area of 0.048–0.054. Our results support the monitoring of CATFIN by the monetary authorities, as an effective proxy of financial fragility to be included in the monetary policy strategy.

Legal informatics is witnessing a sharp rise of available data sources and systems. In effect, managing the complexity of enabling and maintaining interoperability represents a basic challenge due to continuously introduced ontologies, standards and systems. This article suggests an extensible architectural approach that has the potential to streamline the process of supporting interconnection of different systems and data sources. The proposed solution utilizes proven enterprise integration patterns to implement integration and migration services. These software connectors may be used to provide or consume data and functionality of their respective systems. This enables new and existing connectors to be combined and configured to address different use cases. The case of interacting connectors between a parliamentary control data source containing a validated dataset with written questions from the Hellenic Parliament and the LEOS (Legislation Editing Open Software) editor that utilizes the Akoma Ntoso standard serves as proof-of-concept.