We assess the sustainability of public finances in the EU15 using stationarity and cointegration analysis. Specifically, we use panel unit root tests of the first and second generation allowing in some cases for structural breaks. We also apply modern panel cointegration techniques developed by...

During the last three decades there has been an almost continuous undermining of the public interest by private interests operating either outside or inside Greek public administration. The result of this infiltration has been a gradual loss of bureaucratic autonomy to pursue the public...

In this paper we test whether German public debt has been sustainable by resorting to a test proposed by Bohn (1998). We apply non-parametric and semi-parametric regressions with time depending coefficients. This test shows that the mean of the coefficient relevant for sustainability has been...

We extend economic equivalence results, like the Ricardian equivalence proposition, to the political sphere where policy is chosen sequentially. We derive conditions under which a policy regime (summarizing admissible policy choices in every period) and a state are politico-economically...

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in Italy by employing a database containing two statistical novelties: quarterly fiscal variables on accrual basis and a time series estimate of tax evasion for the period 1981:1-2006:4. Following Revenue Agency suggestions, we use in a VECM the...

This paper has two goals. 1) To evaluate the sustainability of Italian public deficits according to the methodology developed by Trehan and Walsh (1988, 1991) and Bohn (2004); 2) To analyze how the determinants of debt creation evolved in the years following the Maastricht Treaty and how this...

We examine whether Swiss federal fiscal policy was sustainable over the period from 1900 to 2002. We perform unit root and cointegration tests for federal revenues and expenditures, taking into account a structural shift in the budgetary process related to World War II. We find sustainability...

We study whether and how much the interest bill conditions the size and composition of public expenditures. The group of EU 15 countries over the 1995-2016 period is the object of analysis. We study both total public expenditures and public expenditures by function of government in order to...

We explore the reaction of the euro area periphery sovereigns' fiscal positions to an unconventional monetary policy shock. We estimate panel vector autoregressive (VAR) models over the period 2010-2018, and identify the shock by imposing sign restrictions. Our results suggest that the...

While the financial protection measures enacted by the ECB and the community of Eurozone members have calmed financial markets, they have left the competitiveness problem of the Eurozone's southern countries and France unresolved. The paper compares price inflation before the crisis with the...