In this paper we analyze the ability of an open economy version of the neoclassical model to account for the time-series evidence on fiscal policy transmission. In a first step, we identify government spending shocks within a vector autoregression model. We find that i) government spending...

This paper analyzes the impact of strained government finances on macroeconomic stability and the transmission of fiscal policy. Using a variant of the model by Curdia and Woodford (2009), we study a 'sovereign risk channel' through which sovereign default risk raises funding costs in the...

A popular view among economists, policy-makers, and the media, is that the Maastricht Treaty and then Stability and Growth Pact have significantly impaired the ability of EU governments to conduct a stabilizing fiscal policy and to provide an adequate level of public infrastructure. In this...

As governments around the world contemplate slashing budget deficits, the "expansionary fiscal consolidation hypothesis" is back in vogue. I argue that, as a statement about the short run, it should be taken with caution. Alesina and Perotti (1995) and Alesina and Ardagna (2010) (AAP) show that...

Does it matter, for the size of the government spending multiplier, which category of agents bears the brunt of the necessary adjustment in taxes? In an economy with heterogeneous agents and imperfect financial markets, the answer depends on whether or not New Keynesian features, such are price...

We ask whether cuts of government consumption lower or raise the sovereign default premium. To address this question, we set up a new data set for 38 emerging and advanced economies which contains quarterly time-series observations for sovereign default premia, government consumption, and...

This paper studies how the effects of government spending vary with the economic environment. Using a panel of OECD countries, we identify fiscal shocks as residuals from an estimated spending rule and trace their macroeconomic impact under different conditions regarding the exchange rate...

Does the fiscal multiplier depend on the exchange rate regime and, if so, how strongly? To address this question, we first estimate a panel vector autoregression (VAR) model on time-series data for OECD countries. We identify the effects of unanticipated government spending shocks in countries...

Sovereign yield spreads within currency unions may reflect the risk of outright default. Yet, if exit from the currency union is possible, spreads may also reflect currency risk. In this paper, we develop a New Keynesian model of a small member country of a currency union, allowing both for...

In an economy with financial imperfections, Ricardian equivalence holds when prices are flexible and the steady-state distribution of consumption is uniform, or labor is inelastic. With different steady-state consumption levels, Ricardian equivalence fails, but tax cuts, somewhat paradoxically,...