Monetary and fiscal policies face huge challenges: the banking sector has collapsed; the economy is in the midst of a deep recession; the exchange rate has plunged; capital flows have been frozen; inflation is elevated; public debt has risen; source of revenues have disappeared; social needs have...

The financial crisis and economic downturn are going to weigh on fiscal positions in OECD countries over the short to medium-term, both through the operation of automatic stabilisers and the enactment of discretionary fiscal stimulus packages. However, the strategic policy options facing OECD...

The objective of this paper is to develop a short-term indicator-based model to predict quarterly GDP in Canada by efficiently exploiting all available monthly information. To this aim, monthly forecasting equations are estimated using the GDP series published every month by Statistics Canada as...

Accurate and timely information on the current state of economic activity is an important requirement for the policymaking process. Delays in the publication of official statistics mean that a complete picture of economic developments within a particular period emerges only some time after that...

Europe is putting in place a new system of fiscal rules following the euro area sovereign debt crisis and decades of rising government to debt-to-GDP ratios. These include the so-called “six pack” to upgrade the Stability and Growth Pact to a new Treaty incorporating the “fiscal...

The financial crisis revealed flaws in pre-crisis policy frameworks. Particular gaps included the failure of monetary and financial policies to incorporate fully the implications of the rapid pro-cyclical growth in financial leverage and risk-taking, especially across national borders, and the...

Substantial fiscal consolidation was achieved under the aegis of the 2003 Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. While deficits widened anew in 2008 and 2009, against the backdrop of the global financial and economic crisis, efforts to reduce them have resumed since. To ensure...

Ireland’s banking crisis, one of the most severe in the OECD area, and the associated economic recession have taken a heavy toll on public finances. Large public deficits have accumulated since 2008 and net public debt, which had been eliminated, has soared once again. The rapid deterioration...

The global economic and financial crisis exacerbated the need for fiscal consolidation in many OECD countries. Drawing lessons from past episodes of fiscal consolidation, this paper investigates the economic environments, political settings and policy measures conducive to fiscal consolidation...

During the economic and financial crisis, fiscal positions across the OECD countries deteriorated sharply. This raises the question of what level of primary deficit would ensure long-term sustainability and what degree of consolidation is needed. The purpose of this paper is to gauge the scale...