In the new issue of Public Sector Economics, you can read a keynote speech by Ehtisham Ahmad Public investment for sustainable growth – managing subnational risks presented at the Institute of Public Finance’s Public Sector Economics Conference held in Zagreb in October 2016. Klaus Masuch, Edmund Moshammer and Beatrice Pierluigi in the paper Institutions, public debt and growth in Europe provide empirical evidence that supports the view that the quality of institutions is an important determinant of a long-term growth in European countries. Stjepan Gadžo and Irena Klemenčić in the paper Effective international information exchange as a key element of modern tax systems: promises and pitfalls of the OECD's common reporting standard explore some of the most important implications of the adoption of the Common Reporting Standard as a global automatic exchange of information model. Luka Šikić and Mislav Šagovac in the paper An international integration history of the Zagreb Stock Exchange examine the co-movement of the Croatian stock market with various European and global financial markets analysing long-term trends of the international financial integration of the Zagreb Stock Exchange as well as the separate impacts of major events that influenced financial markets in the last two decades. In the paper Crowdfunding – Croatian legal perspective and comparison to other sources of financing Katarina Đurđenić examines which existing legislation could be applied to crowdfunding, whether there is a need to introduce a new crowdfunding specific legislation and whether crowdfunding could be a substitute or only a possible complementary instrument for other sources of funding. Branko Stanić reviews the book Fiscal federalism 2016 – Making decentralisation work (editors: Hansjörg Blöchliger and Junghun Kim).

On June 12-13, 2017, Institute of Public Finance held a research workshop Social Protection Policies and Microsimulation, attended by researchers from across the EU and representatives of the Croatian public administration in the field of social protection. Knowledge and experience has been exchanged on the application of state-of-the-art tools and methods in the analysis of taxes and social benefits with an emphasis on economic, social and demographic challenges related to unemployment, poverty, economic inequality and birth rate.