The global financial crisis has lead to a renewed interest in discretionary fiscal stimulus. Advocates of discretionary measures emphasize that government spending can stimulate additional private spending --- the so-called Keynesian multiplier effect. Thus, we investigate whether the...

In terms of the ratio of its public debt and public deficit to GDP the United States lies in the middle of the pack of industrial countries. The period since 1980 is the only peacetime period outside the Great Depression to see a sustained increase in the debt-GDP ratio. The budgetary...

This paper looks at theoretical and empirical issues associated with the operation of fiscal stabilizers within an economy. It argues that such stabilizers operate most effectively at a national, rather than local, level. As differing cycles across regions tend to offset each other for the...

We derive a comprehensive one-year ahead forecasting model of US per capita GDP for 1955-2000, collectively examining variables usually considered singly, e.g. interest rates, credit conditions, the stock market, oil prices and the yield gap, of which all, except the last, are found to matter....

This 2003 Institute for Fiscal Studies Lecture addresses two sets of issues relevant to current and prospective future E(M)U members: the consequences of the Stability and Growth Pact for fiscal-financial sustainability and macroeconomic stability, and some risks associated with operational...

The Paper explores how fiscal policy can be made both more disciplined and more counter-cyclical. It first examines whether the decline of public debts observed in the OECD area during the 1990s can be explained either by less activism or by a priority towards consolidation. It then argues that...

The paper considers the implications for the EU accession candidates of Central and Eastern Europe of the fiscal-financial constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact and the Maastricht Treaty. Our findings apply also to those current EU members whose initial conditions (e.g....

The paper surveys unemployment policies for advanced market economies and evaluates them by examining the predictions of the underlying macroeconomic theories. The basic idea is that, for the most part, different unemployment policy prescriptions rest on different macroeconomic theories, and our...

We consider a constant returns to scale, one sector economy with segmented asset markets, encompassing both the Woodford (1986) and overlapping generations models. We analyze the role of public spending, financed by (labour or capital) income and consumption taxation, on the emergence of...

This Paper presents an analysis of how alternative models of the business cycle can replicate the stylized fact that large governments are associated with less volatile economies. Our analysis shows that adding nominal rigidities and costs of capital adjustment to an otherwise standard RBC model...