The "Great Lockdown" implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a severe world-wide economic crisis. In euro area countries, sovereign debt-to-GDP ratios are on the rise and reductions in expected fiscal surpluses raise sustainability concerns amongst investors. This paper...

Using the exogenous shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, we study how informed market participants evaluate fiscal space. Short-selling activity shifted upon the onset of the pandemic towards companies with low financial flexibility only in countries with limited fiscal space. Among these companies,...

We simulate the fiscal stimulus packages set up by the German government to allevi-ate the costs of the COVID-19 pandemic in a dynamic New Keynesian multi-sectorgeneral equilibrium model. We find that, cumulated over 2020-2022, output lossesrelative to steady state can be reduced by more than 4...

In response to strong revenue and income losses that a large share of the self-employed faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the German federal government introduced a €50bn emergency aid program. Based on real-time online-survey data comprising more than 20,000 observations, we analyze the...

As part of Germany’s fiscal response to the Covid-19 pandemic, parents received three payments totalling e450 per child. Randomization in the payment dates and daily scanner data allow us to identify the effects of these transfers on household spending. We find a significant but small spending...

We use event study regressions to compare the impact of EU monetary versus fiscal policy announcements on government bond spreads of ten euro member countries. Our motivation is to evaluate which of the two players - the ECB or the EU fiscal level - has been more crucial for the stabilization of...

Die finanzpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Bund und Ländern werden seit geraumer Zeit von den Folgeproblemen des Streits um die vertikale Aufteilung der Finanzierungslasten der deutschen Einheit bestimmt. So konnten sich die Gegner der Steuerreform im Bundesrat nur deshalb durchsetzen,...

Nach der Bundestagswahl 1998 ist die von Theo Waigel geprägte finanzpolitische Ära zu Ende gegangen. Welchen Beitrag hat die Finanzpolitik während dieser Zeit zu Wachstum, Stabilität und Beschäftigung geleistet? Wie ist die Finanzierung der deutschen Einheit zu bewerten? Inwieweit wirkte...