Fiscal rules specify quantitative targets for key budgetary aggregates. In this paper, we review the experience with such rules in Japan and in the EU. Comparing the performance of fiscal policy in the 1980s and 1990s until 2003, we find that the fiscal rule of the 1980s exerted some but not...

We discuss two essential problems of the political economy of public finances: The principal agent problem between voters and elected politicians and the common pool problem arising from the fact that money drawn from a general tax fund is used to pay for policies targeting more or less narrow...

This paper analyses the choices of exchange rate regimes in developing countries since 1980. Static and dynamic random-effects multinominal panel models are estimated using simulation-based techniques. Explanatory variables include OCA fundamentals, stabilization considerations, currency crises...

This paper uses a panel probit model with simultaneous equations to explain the joint determination of de facto and de jure exchange rate regimes in developing countries since 1980. We also derive an ordered-choice panel probit model to explain the causes of discrepancies between the two regime...

We provide empirical estimates of the risk-sharing and redistributive properties of the German federal from 1970 until 2006, with special attention to the effects of German fiscal system base unification. We find that tax revenue sharing between the states and the federal government and the...

We develop a model of a small open economy with credit market frictions of the Holmstrom-Tirole type to analyze the consequences of capital account liberalization. We show that financial opening facilitates the inflows of cheap foreign funds and improves production efficiency. Reforms increasing...