Based on the observation of an unabated trend towards higher social spending ratios in advanced countries, the study analyzes the risk of "social dominance", where social expenditures dominate fiscal policy, and undermine growth and fiscal sustainability. We scrutinize this risk by analyzing...

It is widely argued that Europe's unified monetary policy calls for the international coordination at the fiscal level. We survey the issues involved with such coordination of fiscal policy as a demand management tool and we use a simple model to investigate the circumstances under which...

The paper analyses the linkages from financial developments to public finances. It maps and discusses the transmission channels to fiscal variables. These channels include asset prices, financing conditions, balance sheets of banks, non-banks and central banks and international linkages. The...

Since the new German federal government has imposed tight fiscal policy restrictions on itself, a pragmatic approach is needed to finance the spending requirements of the transformation. The financing instruments mentioned in the coalition agreement appears to be suitable in principle for...

In this article, after a brief sketch of the fiscal strategy of the German Government and the current budgetary situation, it is first argued that the current budget dispute could have been avoided because the coalition essentially created the dispute through two fiscal (mid)decisions last year....

Großbritannien und Schweden haben den Abschwung 2000/2001 weitaus besser bewältigt als Deutschland. Gleichzeitig verkörpern diese beiden Länder grundsätzlich verschiedene Kapitalismusmodelle. Wie unterschied sich der makroökonomische Politik-Mix in den drei Ländern? Sollten...