Intro -- Contents -- I. MOTIVATION AND RELATED STUDIES -- II. OUTPUT DROPS -- III. SHOCKS -- IV. MULTIVARIATE PROBIT ANALYSIS -- V. ROBUSTNESS AND EXTENSIONS -- VI. CONCLUSIONS -- APPENDIX TABLES AND FIGURES -- APPENDIX I. HODRICK-PRESCOTT-FILTER BASED DEFINITION OF EVENTS -- APPENDIX II. KERNEL...

This paper presents a fear theory of the economy, based on the interplay between fear of rare disasters and the interest rate on safe assets. To do this, I study the macroeconomic consequences of government-administered interest rates in the neoclassical real business cycle model. When the...

The paper takes stock of the debate on the positive link between output volatility and the size of government-which reflects automatic stabilizers. After a survey of the literature, we show that the contribution of automatic stabilizers to output stability may have disappeared since the 1990s....

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the impact of an unanticipated change in public debt on real GDP. Using public debt forecast errors, we identify exogenous changes in public debt to assess the impact of a change in the debt to GDP ratio on real GDP. By analyzing data on gross public...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. THE DETERMINANTS OF FISCAL PERFORMANCE: A SELECTIVE LITERATURE REVIEW -- III. BUDGET INSTITUTIONS IN NEW AND POTENTIAL EU MEMBER STATES -- IV. BENCHMARK RESULTS -- V. THE ROLE OF DEEPER DETERMINANTS: TIME-INVARIANT FACTORS -- VI. DIFFERENTIATING THE...

Under what conditions are budget institutions likely to be strengthened? We find that fiscal deficits do not help in focusing policymakers on undertaking reforms. To the contrary, the larger the deficit, the lower is the likelihood of reforms. Large deficits apparently imply strong claims on the...

Can an accrual budgeting system-a system in which budgetary spending authorizations to line ministries are formulated in accrual terms-serve the needs of good fiscal policy? If so, how must such a system be designed? What are the practical challenges which may arise in implementing sound fiscal...