We review the determinants of the discretionary fiscal policy action of governments in the euro area and in other advanced economies during the past 20 years. This is done by estimating fiscal reaction functions using dynamic panel techniques and country-by-country estimates. The results suggest...

Identifying fiscal multipliers is usually constrained by the absence of a counterfactual scenario. Our new data set allows overcoming this problem by making use of the fact that recommendations under the EU's excessive deficit procedure (EDP) provide both a baseline no-policy-change scenario and...

There has been much discussion of the differences in macroeconomic performance and prospects between the US, Japan and the euro area. Using Markov-switching techniques, in this paper we identify and compare specifically their major business-cycle features and examine the case for a common...