I calculate unemployment multipliers of fiscal consolidation policies in a standard, closed-economy New Keynesian framework with search and matching frictions, and, as an innovation, in the presence of sectoral heterogeneity. Family and non-family firms behave differently in the labor market and...

This paper analyzes the sustainability of fiscal debt contingent on fiscal policy operating in two fiscal regimes. The first regime is characterized by active policy (not reacting to debt) and the other by passive fiscal policy (reacting to debt). The average duration for which either regime can...

In this paper, we analyze politicians’ expectations about future compliance with a fiscal rule, and in particular the dependence of the expectations on their role in parliament (opposition vs. incumbent government coalition). In addition, we explore how opposition and incumbent politicians...

What are the effects of austerity on distributional policy? We exploit the autonomy of Italian municipalities in setting non-linear income taxes and the exogenous introduction of a fiscal rule to show that austerity increases income tax progressivity. Consistent with this evidence, we find that...