This paper provides empirical evidence of the heterogeneous borrowing behaviours of French regions, despite a common accountability constraint that forces them to balance their budget and to borrow only to finance investment expenditure (golden rule). To this end, we conduct a quantile...

This paper provides empirical evidence of the heterogeneous borrowing behaviours of French regions, despite a common accountability constraint that forces them to balance their budget and to borrow only to finance investment expenditure (golden rule). To this end, we use a quantile regression...

All over the United States, state and local governments are facing increasing revenue deficits due to the current economic recession. Even during good economic times, state and local governments experience temporary cash-flow deficits. State and local governments use short-term municipal bond...

In the past thirty years, local governments in most European countries have been granted at least limited access to borrowing. The rules in force include limitations on the amount of borrowing and/or debt service, restrictions on the purpose of debt and on borrowing from foreign institutions...

We examine the long-run impact of fiscal policy on economic growth under the conditions of an economic and monetary union (EMU). The analysis is based on the neoclassical growth model of a small (in economic terms) open economy in an EMU. The core assumptions are perfect capital mobility, which...

Most parts of the Euro area have seen seven years of deep economic crisis. The strategy of tightening the fiscal constraints of the SGP has driven many member states into austerity. In contrast, the golden rule of public investment proposed in this study would be one important element of the...

It is by now a widely shared insight that fiscal policy needs to be re-strengthened as a macroeconomic policy instrument within European macroeconomic policies: Recent experiences with austerity policies, new research regarding the size of the fiscal multiplier and the fact that monetary policy...

This paper seeks to analyse the determinants of capital flight in selected Latin American countries throughout the 1990s, and gives some insights into what economic policies would be adequate under capital flight conditions. Finding, empirically, the saving rate to be a new determinant of...

We derive a golden rule for the level of health care expenditures and find that the optimal level of life-extending health care expenditures should increase with rising productivity and retirement age, while the effects of improvement in medical technology are ambiguous.

This paper contributes to the debate on the French public finances’ consolidation by investigating the long-term sustainability of France’s fiscal position. We trace the historical trends of government’s tax receipts and expenditures. We find that while the level of public expenditure in...