Over the next decade, autonomous cars will raise average welfare in the EU by at least as much as smartphones have over the past decade.

Britain’s Labour party recently proposed giving the Bank of England a target of 3% annual labor productivity growth. Consider the following statement:

Central banks cannot significantly increase productivity growth over a ten year horizon, except perhaps by promoting macroeconomic stability.

Question A: The European Commission has proposed new rules to ensure that “digital business activities are taxed in a fair and growth-friendly way in the EU”. Consider two statements regarding this proposal:

An EU-wide 3% tax on revenue from digital activities would, on balance, be a good idea.

Question B:

If the EU decides to tax digital service providers, it would be better — given the difficulties of measuring and verifying digital activity — to tax them on the revenue, rather than the profits, that they generate locally.

The European Union often uses its antitrust powers to protect EU-based firms from international competition, rather than to promote greater competition in European markets.

Question A: Trade with China makes most Europeans better off because, among other advantages, they can buy goods that are made or assembled more cheaply in China.

Question B: Some Europeans who work in the production of competing goods, such as clothing and furniture, are made worse off by trade with China.

Question C: If the EU followed the new US steel tariffs by imposing similar EU tariffs on steel from China, it would improve Europeans’ welfare.

Question A: Assuming it exits its third bailout program this summer without an immediate restructuring or other debt relief, Greece is unlikely to default on its sovereign debt in the coming decade.

Question B: Greece would be better off if it had decided to exit the euro between 2011 and 2015.

Question C: If Greece had defaulted on (or restructured) its private debt in 2010, while also staying within the euro, that combination would have been better for Greece than either exiting the euro or proceeding as it has actually done.

Question A: Bitcoins are more similar to gold than they are to currency.

Question B: Bitcoins are more similar to gold than they are to Dutch tulips in the 1630s.

The US spends roughly 17% of GDP on healthcare, according to the OECD; most European countries spend less than 12% of GDP.

Higher quality-adjusted US healthcare prices contribute relatively more to the extra US spending than does the combination of higher quantity and quality of US care (interpreting quantity and quality to reflect both greater American healthcare needs due to underlying population health and the delivery of more or better healthcare services to Americans).

Over the past two years, all else equal, the appeal of the US as a destination for immigrants has changed in ways that will likely decrease innovation in the US economy.

Question A:

Holding other policies fixed, the average European would be better off if every European country taxed corporate profits at a rate of 20% (based as closely as possible on a common definition of profits).

Question B: If other policies were held fixed and every European country taxed corporate profits at a common rate of 20%, then reducing that common rate substantially below 20% would make the average European better off.

Question A: All else equal, if corporations throughout Europe set quotas for a minimum number of women board members, the shareholder value of European companies would increase.

Question B: Taking into account the likely effects on investments in human capital by men and women, setting quotas throughout Europe for a minimum number of women board members would generate substantial net benefits for Europeans.

Question A: Subsidizing renewable energy sources is better than taxing fossil fuels, assuming the subsidy or tax would be set at levels that would reduce carbon emissions by an equivalent amount.

Question B: Germany’s solar-energy subsidies to date have produced net social benefits for Germany.

Question C: Solar-energy subsidies to date in Germany and other countries have produced net social benefits for the world.

Insights from psychology about individual behavior – examples of which include limited rationality, low self-control, or a taste for fairness – predict several important types of observed market outcomes that fully-rational economic models do not.

The influx of refugees into Germany beginning in the summer of 2015 will generate net economic benefits for German citizens over the succeeding decade.

Question A: Holding labor market institutions and job training fixed, rising use of robots and artificial intelligence is likely to increase substantially the number of workers in advanced countries who are unemployed for long periods.

Question B: Rising use of robots and artificial intelligence in advanced countries is likely to create benefits large enough that they could be used to compensate those workers who are substantially negatively affected for their lost wages.

Question A: Consumers will be better off, on balance, if European cities treat firms that provide ride-sharing platforms (such as Uber) as substantively different from taxi firms, and thus not necessarily warranting the same regulation.

Question B: Assuming that taxi and ride-sharing companies were treated as substantively similar — including requirements that they operate on an equal footing regarding safety, insurance and taxation — letting ride-sharing services compete without restrictions on prices or routes would raise consumer welfare.

Question C: Regardless of how ride-sharing services are treated, existing regulations for traditional taxi firms in many European cities harm consumers by limiting competition.

Question A: Revising France’s labor market policies — by reducing employment protection, decentralizing labor negotiations to the firm level, and making training programs more accessible and responsive to labor demands — would, all else equal, increase productivity in France’s economy.

Question B: Reducing employment protection would reduce the equilibrium unemployment rate in France.

Question A: The ECB's asset purchases over the past two years have reduced the threat of deflation in the euro area as a whole.

Question B: If the economic outlook in the euro area becomes less favorable, then increasing the ECB's asset purchase program (in size or duration) would substantially increase the euro area's economic growth over the following five years.

In general, absent any inside information, an equity investor can expect to do better by holding a well-diversified, low-fee, passive index fund than by holding a few stocks.

Question A: Without changes in policy, a rising share of people who are over age 65 will exert a substantial downward influence on per capita real GDP in western European countries.

Question B: In European countries where the share of those over 65 is rising, there are net social benefits to adjusting retirement ages for state-financed (including pay-as-you-go) pension systems upwards, so that revised retirement ages better reflect longer life expectancies.

Question A: All else equal, there are substantial advantages to having much of Europe’s human capital and infrastructure for international financial activity clustered in a single city, as they are at present in London.

Question B: All else equal, Britain’s rules on hiring, firing and working hours are significantly more conducive to financial activity than those in other large European countries.

Question A: Setting the EU rules aside, and assuming it would take 2.5% of Italy’s GDP to recapitalize its banks, the Italian government would improve financial stability in Europe if it injected this amount of public funds into its banks.

Question B: If Italy were to inject public funds into its banks without imposing losses on at least some claimants, an important cost would be the effect on future incentives (economic or political) in Europe.

Question A: Because of the Brexit vote's outcome, the UK's real per-capita income level is likely to be lower a decade from now than it would have been otherwise.

Question B: Because of the Brexit vote's outcome, the rest of the EU's real per-capita income level is likely to be lower a decade from now than it would have been otherwise.

In general, using more congestion charges in crowded transportation networks — such as higher tolls during peak travel times in cities, and peak fees for airplane takeoff and landing slots — and using the proceeds to lower other taxes would make citizens on average better off.

On the whole, the shift from state to private ownership of many industrial assets in central and eastern European countries after communism has increased productivity in those countries.

Question A: Freer movement of goods and services across borders within Europe has made the average western European citizen better off since the 1980s.

Question B: Freer movement of goods and services across borders within Europe has made many low-skilled western European citizens worse off since the 1980s.

Question A: Giving tax incentives to specific firms to locate operations in a country typically generates domestic benefits that outweigh the costs to the country providing the incentives.

Question B: Europe as a whole benefits when European cities or countries compete with each other by giving tax incentives to firms to locate operations in their jurisdictions.

Question A: Freer movement of people to live and work across borders within Europe has made the average western European citizen better off since the 1980s.

Question B: Freer movement of people to live and work across borders within Europe has made many low-skilled western European citizens worse off since the 1980s.