The sharp increase in fiscal deficits and public debt in most advanced and several developing economies has raised concerns about the sustainability of public finances and highlighted the need for a significant adjustment over the medium term. This paper assesses the usefulness of fiscal rules...

Forward-looking behavior on the part of the monetary authority leads least squares estimates to understate the true growth consequences of monetary policy interventions. We present instrumental variables estimates of the impact of interest rates on real output growth for several European...