This paper provides evidence on the role of net fiscal transfers to households and EU structural funds for per-capita output convergence across a large sample of European regions during the period 1995-2005. We find that net fiscal transfers, while achieving regional redistribution, seem to...

This paper uses a dynamic panel approach to explain the determinants of widening sovereign bond yield spreads vis-à-vis Germany in selected euro area countries during the period end-July 2007 to end-March 2009, when the financial turmoil developed into a full-blown financial and economic...

This paper investigates the average impact of government debt on per-capita GDP growth in twelve euro area countries over a period of about 40 years starting in 1970. It finds a non-linear impact of debt on growth with a turning point—beyond which the government debt-to-GDP ratio has a...

The analysis of the macroeconomic impact of fiscal policies in the euro area has been traditionally limited by the absence of quarterly fiscal data. To overcome this problem, we provide two new databases in this paper. Firstly, we construct a quarterly database of euro area fiscal variables for...

We analyse the impact of fiscal policy shocks in the euro area as a whole, using a newly available quarterly dataset of fiscal variables for the period 1981-2007. To allow for comparability with previous results on euro area countries and the US, we use a standard structural VAR framework, and...

Should rational agents take into consideration government policy announcements? A skilled agent (an econometrician) could set up a model to combine the following two pieces of information in order to anticipate the future course of fiscal policy in real-time: (i) the ex-ante path of policy as...

Against the background of the euro area sovereign debt crisis, our paper investigates the relationship between public debt and economic growth and adds to the existing literature in the following ways. First, we extend the threshold panel methodology by Hansen (1999) to a dynamic setting in...

Given the increased importance of …fiscal monitoring, this study amends the existing literature in the …field of intra-annual fi…scal data in two main dimensions. First, we use quarterly fi…scal data to forecast a very disaggregated set of …fiscal series at annual frequency. This makes...

Should rational agents take into consideration government policy announcements? A skilled agent (an econometrician) could set up a model to combine the following two pieces of information in order to anticipate the future course of fiscal policy in real-time: (i) the ex-ante path of policy as...

Due to input-output linkages, an industry level shock can widely transmit to the rest of the economy. We identify government policies on the automobile industry, which change final prices and estimate their effect on sales and production. An example could be the scrappage schemes that many...