This paper examines the implications of the experience with the financial crisis of August 2007 for fiscal policy and the use made of it. We briefly sketch the changing attitudes toward fiscal policy and the demise of arbitrary rules for the budget deficits and the reassertion of purposeful...

Current economic policy upgrades monetary policy and downgrades fiscal policy. Monetary policy involves the manipulation of the central bank interest rate, with the specific objective of achieving the main goal of monetary policy, which is, in most cases, the inflation rate. Fiscal policy should...

The Bank of England's report on its approach to macroeconomic modeling reveals the underlying structure of their macroeconomic model used for policy purposes. A simplified representation of the Bank of England model is presented, which is less disaggregated than the original model and focuses on...

Practical monetary policy concerns and recent theoretical developments have revived interest in the concept of a "natural" equilibrium real interest rate. The natural real interest rate is potentially an important concept for monetary policy makers and some researchers have suggested that the...