Uncertainty about the future preferences of the government may induce policy makers to run excessive budget deficits. As a solution to this problem, economists have proposed to impose a binding debt rule. In this paper we argue that a binding debt rule does not eliminate the distortions due to...

The objective of this paper is to analyze the role of fiscal policy in the determinants of the sovereign spreads of a group of 23 emerging market countries in the period 1995-2008 focusing on two matters: i) fiscal policy sustainability, known as the accumulation of primary budget surplus, that...

In this paper we investigate experimentally the functioning of a wage tax financed unemployment benefit system on the development of the budget deficit, unemployment, and some other indicators of economic performance in an international economy. We find support for the hypothesis that...

This discussion paper intends to complement the analyzes carried out in Gobetti (2015), updating the diagnosis of the development of fiscal balances of the Brazilian public sector from the new series of GDP released by IBGE and statistics "above the line" that incorporate regional level of...

This text aims to qualify the debate on the need for fiscal adjustment in Brazil, showing that the trend that takes place - at this conjuncture, as in other past - a low quality setting, based on cutting investments and / or increased tax burden, it is almost inevitable in the face of public...

This paper estimates the primary structural balance and the fiscal impulse for the Brazilian public administrations from 1997 to 2010. We performed two adjustments: i) initially, one-off measures (including those resulting from creative accounting) were identified; and, ii) after this correction,...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly thereafter,...

Interest rates on public debt have for several years now fallen short of GDP growth rates in much of the Western world. In his presidential address to the AEA Blanchard argued that this implies that there are no fiscal costs to high debt (Blanchard, 2019).1 In this paper we argue that the safe...