This paper assesses the contribution of the European Central Bank (ECB) to Germany’s ongoing economic crisis, a vicious circle of decline in which the country has become stuck since the early 1990s. It is argued that the ECB continues the Bundesbank tradition of asymmetric policymaking: the...

We analyse welfare effects of the interactions between the tax system and inflation in Poland and in Ukraine, using the framework developed by Feldstein (1997, 1999). This approach stresses the fact that inflation increases distortions created by the tax system, in particular distortions to...

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic policy shocks in a Real- Business-Cycle Model with money. In addition to technology shocks, I include government consumption, government investment, tax rate and monetary policy as sources of random disturbances. Money is introduced in a...

This paper reviews the existing empirical evidence on the short-term impact on prices of fiscal variables and assesses it against new results from harmonised simulations, conducted with six well-established econometric models used by the ECB and five national central banks (NCBs) of the...

We examine trend economic developments in New Zealand and in each of Australia’s six states and two territories (i.e. nine regions) in order to inform issues regarding economic policy harmonisation across Australasia. Our focus is on trend developments in GDP, population, GDP per capita and...

The recovery from the 1890s depression in Australia was prolonged, and economic growth 1895-1913 was below that in the comparable settler economies of Argentina and Canada. Why? Australia’s hesitant initial recovery is typically attributed to the imbalances in the economy resulting from the...

Between 1870 and 1890 Australian incomes per capita were 40 percent or more above those in the United States. About half this gap is attributable to Australia’s higher labor input per capita, and half to its higher labor productivity. The higher labor input is due in part to favorable...

This paper discusses some puzzles in the contemporary macroeconomic scene in India, from the perspective of public finance and economic development. These include a fiscal deficit higher than it was during the 1991 crisis, but without a large current account deficit or rise in inflation or...

In the absence of an equalization grant system, like we justify occurs in Spain at the local level of government, those governments that bear a decrease in their level of tax capacity will have to adjust their budget either by increasing their level of tax effort, by reducing their level of...

Municipalities financial distress (which we refer as financial vulnerability) is a recurrent concern of French political life. However, there is no universal and unique definition of financial distress. This paper presents a synthesis of some possible definitions and display the real importance...