among eurozone forecasts. If euro area governments are not in violation of the 3% cap at the time forecasts are made …. The members of the eurozone are supposedly constrained by the fiscal caps of the Stability and Growth Pact. Yet ever since … the birth of the euro in 1999, members have postponed painful adjustment by making overly optimistic forecasts of future …

The paper provides and empirical characterization of fiscal policy in the euro area and in a group of twenty-two OECD … economies over the period from 1970 until 2007. Using the cyclically-adjusted fiscal balance we document that policy in the euro … policies. However, the component of the budget due to automatic stabilizers reacts stronger in the euro-area countries than in …

We provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics of eurozone countries from 2000 to 2012. We analyze private leverage … government spending, and sudden stops. We then ask how eurozone countries would have fared with different policies. We find that …

now highly-sensitive GIIPS group and other European country groupings (EU and Euro Area excluding GIIPS, and the non … in GIIPS to other euro countries is not evident once own-country credit rating changes are taken into account …

levels and different maturity structures. The monetary-fiscal nexus is central to the functioning of the euro area. We focus … Euro Area countries. For comparison we also estimate the fiscal consequences of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England …