This paper proposes a signaling model of fiscal stabilizations that offers a new perspective on why governments deviate from optimal tax smoothing. In our model, dependable -but not fully credible- governments have an incentive to tighten the fiscal regime when the signaling effect on credit...

The Stability and Growth Pact sets a medium-term target for fiscal policy of a budgetary position "close to balance of in surplus". This addition to the deficit rule defined by the Maastricht Treaty has been interpreted as an attempt to reconcile the objective of sound public finances with the...

We present the "fixed exchange rate" version of the Obstfeld and Rogoff model analyze the international transmission of fiscal policy shocks. It is shown that the welfare effects of an unanticipated contraction in government expenditure in the home country crucially depend on the way in which...

This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal contractions, permanent improvements in public finances and short-run economic performance.

Despite stringent dismissal restrictions in most European countries, rates of job creation and destruction are remarkably similar in European and Noeth American labor markets. This paper shows that relative-wage compression is conducive to higher employer-initiated job turnover, and argues that...