The German debt brake is often regarded as a great success story, and has therefore served as a role model for the Euro area and its fiscal compact. In this paper we fundamentally criticize the debt brake. We show that (1) it suffers from serious shortcomings, and its success is far from certain...

Starting from the view that the crises in the euro zone were basically triggered by financial markets and reinforced by a lack of instruments for effective economic policy at the EMU level (Economic and Monetary Union), this working paper contributes to the ongoing debate on how to reform the...