The Economists' Voice

Edited by: Friedrich Heinemann and Gunther Schnabl

Language: English

First published: January 1, 2004

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About this journal

Objective
The Economists' Voice (EV) is a non-partisan forum for economists to present innovative policy ideas.

Economists have much to contribute to the public debate on a wide range of policy issues. Anyone concerned about the economic policy challenges of today, whether they are students, policymakers, or other citizens, would benefit from being involved in economists’ policy-oriented debate. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, trade, exchange rate policy, development policy, labor market policy, and regulation as well as health care and pension reform are among the most important fields of economic policy discussions.　

The Economists' Voice creates a forum for readable analysis by leading economists on vital economic policy issues of our day. The focus is on the clear verbal presentation of important evidence-based arguments for a broad readership. Empirical papers on policy-relevant issues are also welcome.

The Economists’ Voice was shortlisted for Best New Journal in the 2007 ALPSP/Charlesworth Awards. Its focused policy articles fill a gap between the op-ed pages of the newspaper and journal articles in theoretical journals. Contributors include seven Nobel Prize winners, five past chairs of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, public intellectuals like Paul Krugman and Richard Posner, and a veritable "Who's Who" of modern economic theory and policy.　

Topics

Monetary policy
Fiscal policy
Trade policy
Exchange rate policy
Development policy
Labor market policy
Regulation
Health care and pension reform
and all other economic policy relevant issues

Article formats
Two types of articles are accepted. First, policy papers up to 10,000 words, which are subject to a double-blind referee process and contribute to the scientific debate on important policy issues. Second, short articles for our policy forum, between 600 – 3000 words. They contain a deeper analysis than a newspaper article/comment but are of comparable general interest.

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Your Benefits

Your benefits

Recognized editorial board
Contributions by Nobel Prize winners
Insightful analyses of the vital issues of today
Quick access to articles, thanks to online publishing

Open Access
Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine? Why Did Hamas Attack Israel? Answers Suggested by Economic Models of Dictatorship and Terrorism

December 3, 2025

Ronald Wintrobe

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In this paper I use rational economic models to explain the origins of two recent wars, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 and the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023. In both cases the literature has prominently featured two different kinds of motivations for the attacks, one offensive and one defensive. Did Russia invade Ukraine because it was afraid that Ukraine was getting too strong and too close to NATO and Russia was weakened by this? Or did it invade because Putin thought that the West was weak, particularly after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan? Did Hamas attack Israel on October 7th because it was afraid that the other Arab countries were about to abandon the Palestinian cause and thus forever weaken it? Or did its leaders believe they could advance the Palestinian cause with a successful attack and withstand the Israeli response, having built a vast system of tunnels with money from Qatar, and possibly counting on help from Hezbollah and Iran? I address these questions in this paper with economic models. I use the models – of dictatorship and terrorism – developed in my previous work, to provide answers to these questions. In both cases, the models favor the offensive explanations of the attacks as opposed to the defensive ones. Russia attacked Ukraine because it thought it could win easily. Hamas attacked Israel because of its newfound strength.
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The Micro-Macro Paradox of Aid Revisited

December 12, 2025

Martin Paldam

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The goal of development aid used to be development as proxied by economic growth. This goal was operationalized in cost benefit analysis. However, aid effectiveness has always been in doubt. The doubts have had two consequences: Aid is falling, and its goal has been widened to make it non-operational. This paper looks at the reasons for the doubt, the micro-macro paradox of aid: (i) Micro project evaluations find a fair efficiency. The cost-benefit tools used to evaluate aid projects should aggregate to the macro. (ii) Univariate macro estimates find a zero-correlation result, and that lags solve the causality problem. (iii) Multivariate macro estimates find highly variable results with a small meta-average. A list of possible explanations that may reduce the paradox is provided, but the effect-sizes of these possibilities are hard to assess. It is argued that as the operational goal of aid has vanished, so has the support for aid.
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Causes of Climate Models Uncertainty and Implications for Economic Policy

July 22, 2025

Alfred Greiner

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In this paper the causes of climate models uncertainty are shown and policy implications are discussed. It is well known that a higher greenhouse gas concentration raises the radiative forcing of the earth and the physics behind it is well understood. However, regarding the feedback effects of higher temperatures, parameter uncertainty, model uncertainty and the chaotic nature of the climate system give rise to a considerable degree of ignorance regarding the climate system. Given this uncertainty costly CO 2 abatement measures are difficult to justify with the currently available technology. But, due to technical progress more efficient technologies are expected to reduce abatement costs in the future such that a net zero emission policy could be justified to avoid possible, but uncertain, climate damages. However, fixing a deadline by which the net zero goal must be met is not welfare maximizing and more flexibility is needed to avoid prohibitive costs.

Journal Impact Factor	0.9	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
5-year Journal Impact Factor	0.7	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
Journal Citation Indicator	0.29	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
CiteScore	1.1	2024, Scopus (Elsevier B.V., 2025)
SCImago Journal Rank	0.345	2024, SJR (Scimago Lab, 2025; Data Source: Scopus)
Source Normalized Impact per Paper	0.599	2024, CWTS Journal Indicators (CWTS B.V., 2025; Data Source: Scopus)

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