This paper explores the role of political stability on fiscal policy choices in a time-series analysis over 158 years on the Swiss federal level. We argue that the fiscal-commons problem of public finances is affected by the time-horizon of a finance minister. Arguably, the incentives for an...

Over the next four decades, increasing old-age dependency ratios exert an enormous upward pressure on welfare spending in most developed countries. As this is mainly due to existing unfunded public pension schemes, many countries have embarked on far-reaching reforms in this area, strengthening...

We apply non-linear error-correction models to the empirical testing of the sustainability of the government's intertemporal budget constraint. Our empirical analysis, based on Italy, shows that the Italian government is meeting its intertemporal budget constraint, in spite of the high levels of...

The 2008 financial crisis is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1929. It has been characterised by a housing bubble in a context of rapid credit expansion, high risk-taking and exacerbated financial leverage, leading to deleveraging and credit crunch when the bubble burst....

In this paper, we challenge the conventional wisdom that due to the negative correlation between family size and earning ability, family size can be used as a 'tagging' device, and calls for subsidizing children (via child allowances) to enhance egalitarian objectives. We show that the case for...

This paper develops a Mirrlees (1971) framework with heterogeneous agents to analyze optimal redistributive taxes, optimal provision of public goods and the marginal cost of public funds (MCF). Standard MCF measures are shown to suffer from three defects: i) The MCF for the (non-individualized)...

Fiscal policy has become quite controversial in the post-Keynesian era, the debate over the Obama stimulus package being a contentious recent example. Some pundits go so far as to take the position that macroeconomic theory has failed to meaningfully progress in terms of providing useful...

In oligopolistic industries, increased cost saving opportunities via offshoring have a moderating effect on trade unions. In order to discourage mobile firms from leaving the country, unions accept lower sector wages. In effect, the negotiated wage becomes independent of workers' bargaining...

We analyze the short and long run effects of demographic ageing - increased longevity and reduced fertility - on per-capita growth. The OLG model captures direct effects, working through adjustments in the savings rate, labor supply, and capital deepening, and indirect effects, working through...

Despite remarkable growth during the last decade, Asia and the Pacific still faces extensive basic infrastructure needs. Furthermore, to cope up with the reduced export demand from advanced economies arising out of the ongoing financial crisis, the region needs to enhance its connectivity...