This paper surveys the empirical research on fiscal policy analysis based on real-time data. This literature can be broadly divided in three groups that focus on: (1) the statistical properties of Revisions in fiscal data; (2) the political and institutional determinants of projection errors by...

The objective of this study is to use both static and dynamic frameworks to compare the benefits that immigrants draw from the public system with their contributions through the taxes that they pay. The main conclusion of this article is that the impact of immigration on welfare systems is weak....

This paper provides empirical evidence showing that smaller countries tend to have more volatile government consumption for a sample of 160 countries from 1960 to 2000. The analysis also shows that country size is negatively related to the discretionary part of government consumption and to the...

In this paper we argue that any assessment on the intentional stance of fiscal policy should be based upon all the information available to policymakers at the time of fiscal planning. In particular, real-time data on the discretionary fiscal policy “instrument”, the structural primary...

This paper uses a stratified sample of firms across OECD economies over the period 1996-2004 to analyse the effects of corporate taxes on productivity and investment. Applying a differences-in-differences estimation strategy which exploits differential effects of corporate taxes on firms with...

Does an inflation conservative central bank à la Rogoff (1985) remain desirable in a setting with endogenous fiscal policy? To provide an answer we study monetary and fiscal policy games without commitment in a dynamic stochastic sticky price economy with monopolistic distortions. Monetary...

In many countries, government-budget surpluses have led to a decline in the amount of federal government debt outstanding. This paper considers the consequences of this development for a central bank that conducts monetary policy through open market operations in treasury debt. A model is...

This paper studies monetary and fiscal policy rules, and investigates the characteristics of optimal policies. The central focus of the paper is on the comparison of two types of fiscal rules: a balanced budget and a target for the primary surplus. Balanced budget rules (or, more generally,...

This paper identifies optimal policy rules in the presence of explicit targets for both the inflation rate and public debt. This issue is investigated in the context of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that describes a small open economy with capital accumulation, distortionary...

This paper considers whether eliminating the stock of government debt outstanding would reduce welfare. It models an economy with three assets—currency, government bonds, and storage, a transactions role for money, and a demand for liquidity and thus a role for banks. The Friedman rule is not...