Macroeconomic Policies of the Economic and Monetary Union: Theoretical Underpinnings and Challenges Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer, The Levy Economics Institute and Leeds University Abstract This paper presents two issues: first, an effort to decipher the type of economic analysis and...

The paper discusses and revisits some of the most popular stories behind the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina, i.e. the prolonged overvaluation of the peso owing to the Currency Board arrangement, the lack of fiscal adjustment, and the negative external environment which triggered a “sudden...

In the debate on monetary policy strategies on both sides of the Atlantic, it is now almost a commonplace to contrast the Fed and the ECB by pointing out the former’s flexibility and capacity to adjust rigidity, and the latter’s extreme caution, and obsession with low inflation. In looking...

What have we learned from the Great Recession about Keynesian fiscal stimulus? This article contains five sections that develop the following five points: (1) There is confusion about what constitutes Keynesian fiscal stimulus; (2) Economists are deeply divided about fiscal stimulus; (3) A...

Did the 2008 rebate fail to stimulate consumer spending? In their influential AER articles, John Taylor and Martin Feldstein each claim that BEA aggregate time series data show that the 2008 rebate failed. Re-examining the BEA data, we find that the data instead show there is a high probability...

Did the 2008 rebate fail to stimulate consumer spending? In their recent influential AER articles, John Taylor and Martin Feldstein each claim that BEA aggregate time series data show that the 2008 rebate failed. Re-examining the BEA data, we find that the data instead show there is a high...

This paper surveys the evolution of macroeconomic policy, in the New Zealand context, from the beginning of the end of the Great Inflation of the 1970s/1980s, through to the current recovery from the Great Recession brought on by the Global Financial Crisis. The 30 or so years since the late...

This paper examines the extent to which projected aggregate tax revenue changes, in association with population ageing over the next 50 years, can be expected to finance expected increases in social welfare expenditures. It uses projections from two separate models, dealing with social...

New Zealand’s fiscal policy framework has been in place for nearly 20 years. At its core is a set of principles around maintaining prudent levels of public debt and running fiscal surpluses on average over time. This framework, combined with an extended period of economic growth, contributed...

Existing methodologies for estimating a government’s structural budget balance are reviewed and applied to the case of New Zealand. Besides the conventional cyclical adjustment, an assessment is made of other possible non-structural elements to the budgetary position, including the terms of...