This paper shows that important insights for fiscal policy can be derived from Joseph Schumpeter's academic work. This concerns his fundamental distinction between theories in which the monetary sphere is identical with the real sphere ("real analysis"), and theories in which financial sphere is...

I estimate fiscal reaction functions to analyze the cyclical behavior of discretionary measures in the euro area and the potential impact of changes in the fiscal framework. The core is to analyze whether fiscal rules have an asymmetric impact on discretionary measures over the cycle. First,...

We develop a three-country, stock-flow consistent macroeconomic model to study the effects of changes in both personal and functional income distribution on national current account balances. Each country has a household sector and a non-household (corporate) sector. The household sector is...

Germany entered the euro with a current account deficit but over theentire past decade has run large and persistent current account surpluses. Besides joining the common currency, the increase of Germany's current account since the late 1990s has been accompanied by strong shifts in thepersonal...

We simulate the Euro Area's fiscal consolidation between 2011 and 2013 by employing two DSGE models used by the ECB and the European Commission, respectively. The cumulative multiplier amounts to 0.7 and 1.0 in the baseline, but increases to 1.3 with a reasonably calibrated financial accelerator...

We analyze whether there are negative (positive) long-term effects of austerity measures (stimulus measures) on potential output growth. Based on the approach of Blanchard and Leigh (2013) and Fatás and Summers (2016) and using a novel dataset of narratively identified fiscal policy shocks, we...

We use novel German survey data to investigate how perceptions and information about public finances influence attitudes towards public debt and fiscal rules. On average, people strongly underestimate the debt-to-GDP ratio, overestimate the interest-to-tax-revenue ratio and favor a tighter...

This paper explores the macroeconomics of fiscal austerity and deflation in an economy with public debt. A binding budget deficit cap destabilizes the economy by turning the government budget into an automatic destabilizer. Public debt helps maintain AD in the presence of deflation because...

This paper qualifies the view of pronounced overpricing of sovereign bonds for the so-called GIIPS countries during the financial crisis. We use annual data for 21 OECD countries from 1980 to 2012. As opposed to related studies, our data set allows us to contrast the pricing of macroeconomic...

The paper discusses the trajectories of the Greek public deficit andsovereign debt between 1980 and 2010 and its connection to thepolitical and economic environment of the same period. We payspecial attention to the causality between the public and the externaldeficit in the period after 1995,...