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Government forecasts of GDP growth and budget balances are generally more over-optimistic than private sector forecasts. When official forecasts are especially optimistic relative to private forecasts ex ante, they are more likely also to be over-optimistic relative to realizations ex post. For...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012456327
This paper begins by discussing the inherent conflict between the simultaneous existence of a single currency for the countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the independent fiscal policies of those countries. The Stability and Growth Pact was an attempt to reconcile that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012467436
A popular view among economists, policymakers, 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...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012468923
The aging of the population shakes the confidence in the economic viability of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We demonstrate how in a political-economy framework the shaken cofidence leads to the downsizing of the social security-system, and to the emergence of supplemental individual...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012469430
The `Excessive Deficit Procedure' of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union proposes two fiscal convergence conditions for entry and continued membership in the EMU: 1) a country's overall budget deficit for each fiscal year must be equal to or below 3% of GDP, and 2) a country's...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012472990
We use a network model of credit risk to measure market expectations of the potential spillovers from a sovereign default. Specifically, we develop an empirical model, based on the recent theoretical literature on contagion in financial networks, and estimate it with data on sovereign credit...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012458098
IMF forecasts and the EU's Fiscal Compact foresee Europe's heavily indebted countries running primary budget surpluses of as much as 5 percent of GDP for as long as 10 years in order to maintain debt sustainability and bring their debt/GDP ratios down to the Compact's 60 percent target. We show...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012458350
This paper investigates the impact of credit rating changes on the sovereign spreads in the European Union and investigates the macro and financial factors that account for the time varying effects of a given credit rating change. We find that changes of ratings are informative, economically...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012459536
The European Central Bank is unique in setting monetary policy for several sovereign states with heterogeneous debt levels and different maturity structures. The monetary-fiscal nexus is central to the functioning of the euro area. We focus on one particular aspect of that nexus, the effect the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013537713
. The members of the eurozone are supposedly constrained by the fiscal caps of the Stability and Growth Pact. Yet ever since …•Despite the well-known tendency of eurozone members to exceed the 3% cap on budget deficits, often in consecutive … among eurozone forecasts. If euro area governments are not in violation of the 3% cap at the time forecasts are made …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012460377