The ‘saving for a rainy day’ hypothesis implies that households’ saving decisions reflect that they can (rationally) predict future income declines. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis plays a key role in discussions of fiscal policy multipliers and it holds under the null that the...

One of the main functions of public debt is to smooth taxes and spending over time. In the Covid crisis, the Maastricht deficit restrictions were temporarily suspended to allow for large temporary deficits. As recovery sets in, countries are confronted with the task of consolidating the Covid...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the sustainability of public debt in Italy during the last 150 years (1861-2010) by employing a database containing several statistical novelties: new time series estimates of public debt and GDP (respectively Bank of Italy and Baffigi, 2011) and an original...

This survey features three parts. The first one covers the recent literature on domestic (i.e., country-specific) uncertainty and offers ten main takeaways. The second part reviews contributions on the fast-growing strand of the literature focusing on the macroeconomic effects of uncertainty...

This survey features three parts. The first one covers the recent literature on domestic (i.e., country-specific) uncertainty and offers ten main takeaways. The second part reviews contributions on the fast-growing strand of the literature focusing on the macroeconomic effects of uncertainty...