Fiscal policy in the Euro area is still dominated by austerity measures implemented under the institutional setting of the 'reformed' stability and growth pact, and the even stricter 'fiscal compact'. At the same time, calls for a more expansionary fiscal policy to overcome the economic crisis...

The German debt brake is often regarded as a great success story, and has therefore served as a role model for the Euro area and its fiscal compact. In this paper we fundamentally criticize the debt brake. We show that (1) it suffers from serious shortcomings, and its success is far from certain...

German fiscal policy is nowadays often presented as a shining example due to successful budget consolidation after the Great Recession. However, the idea that the German success is the result of a well-thought-out economic strategy that could therefore serve as a role model for other countries...

The German debt brake is often regarded as a great success story, and has therefore served as a role model for the Euro area and its fiscal compact. In this paper we fundamentally criticize the debt brake. We show that (1) it suffers from serious shortcomings, and its success is far from certain...

We assess the time varying features of fiscal sustainability in the euro area via revisiting the empirical relationship between the primary budget surplus and the debt-to-GDP ratio. Focusing on a sample of 11 Euro-area countries between 1999Q1 and 2013Q4 and by means of time series analyses, we...

The paper examines the joint impact of inflation targeting (IT) and fiscal rules (FR) on fiscal behavior and inflation in a broad panel of advanced and developing economies over the period 1990-2009. The main contribution of the paper is to show that, as suggested by the theoretical literature,...

We study the relevance of fiscal rules for growth in an EU panel. Our results show that they foster growth, while stricter fiscal rules mitigate the adverse impact on growth from big governments. Moreover, more recent EU member states have gained from the implementation of fiscal rules

Xavier Debrun and Manmohan S. Kumar deal with the impact of institutions on fiscal discipline, first discussing the point in principle: (i) fiscal institutions can work as commitment devices (i.e. tie policymakers' hands); (ii) they can work as signalling devices (i.e. reduce the information...

We assess, via system GMM, how Stock Flow Adjustments (SFA) affect the debt-to-GDP ratio in 65 countries (covering developed and emerging and low-income countries) between 1985-2014. We find that SFAs positively contribute to the change in the debt-to-GDP ratio with a coefficient close to one....