Public deficit figures are subject to revisions, as most macroeconomic aggregates are. Nevertheless, in the case of Europe, the latter could be particularly worrisome given the role of fiscal data in the functioning of EU's multilateral surveillance rules. Adherence to such rules is judged upon...

We analyse the determinants of the structure of public debt in the case of Spain, from a sub-national perspective. The endogenous shift in the composition of debt (among shortvs long-term instruments, and loans vs securities) depends on observable measures of credit and liquidity risks. To...

This paper proposes an empirical framework that distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary compliance with fiscal deficit targets on the basis of economic, institutional and political factors. The framework is applied to Spain's Autonomous Communities (regions) over the period 2002-2015....

The evolution of Regional and Local governments' spending in Spain is currently under close scrutiny by national and international investors and analysts, international organizations and rating agencies. Indeed, some 50% of general government spending and some 70% of public employment are...

Outsourcing can be defined as the delivery of public services by the private sector. The sign of the effect of outsourcing on public spending is ambiguous ex-ante. While outsourcing may reduce public spending through higher competition in the private sector, it may also increase public spending...

We extend previous work that combines the Value at Risk approach with estimation of the correlation pattern of the macroeconomic determinants of public debt dynamics by means of Vector Auto Regressions (VARs). These estimated models are used to compute the probability that the public debt ratio...

Sovereign spreads within the European Monetary Union (EMU) arise because markets price-in heterogeneous country fundamentals, but also re-denomination risks, given the incomplete nature of EMU. This creates a permanent risk of financial fragmentation within the area. In this paper we claim that...

The analysis of the macroeconomic impact of fiscal policies in the euro area has been traditionally limited by the absence of quarterly fiscal data. To overcome this problem, we provide two new databases in this paper. Firstly, we construct a quarterly database of euro area fiscal variables for...

we analyse the impact of fiscal policy shocks in the euro area as a whole, using a newly available quarterly dataset of fiscal variables for the period 1981-2007. to allow for comparability with previous results on euro area countries and the us, we use a standard structural var framework, and...

In this paper we develop a comprehensive short-term fiscal forecasting system of use for the real-time monitoring of the Spanish government's borrowing requirement. Spain has been at the centre of the recent European sovereign debt crisis, not least because of sizeable failures in meeting public...