Inflationary shocks, economic aggregates and households’ green transition. A causal machine learning analysis using mixed frequency data

This research note investigates the causal effects of inflationary shocks on household economic indicators, unemployment rates, and other critical labour market indicators for three countries: Germany, Italy and France. These are the three major EU economies and, together, represent nearly half of the EU population. The variables of interest are: unemployment rate, employment rate, part-time employment as a percentage of employment, temporary contracts as a percentage of employment, gross household investment rate, gross household saving rate, and households’ consumption expenditure. The research note also analyses the causal effects of inflationary shocks on the take-up of energy-saving housing infrastructure policy (EIP) in Italy, based on the number of requests for the Italian Superbonus 110%.1 It does not provide such detailed analysis for France and Germany, given the lack of publicly available official data on energy-saving policies implemented.