The question of what is a sustainable public debt is paramount in the macroeconomic analysis of fiscal policy. This question is usually formulated as asking whether the outstanding public debt and its projected path are consistent with those of the government's revenues and expenditures (i.e....

We assess the fiscal behaviour in the European Union countries for the period 1990-2005 via the responsiveness of budget balances to several determinants. The results show that the existence of effective fiscal rules, the degree of public spending decentralization, and the electoral cycle can...

This note looks at US$ and DM/Euro denominated government bond spreads relative to US and German benchmark bonds before and after the start of the current financial crisis. The study finds, first, that bond yield spreads before and during the crisis can largely be explained on the basis of...