Conflicts of interest within hierarchic government organizations regarding the importance of fiscal discipline create the need for institutions that curb the bargaining power of units in charge of implementing policy and align their incentives to the interests of the whole organization. We...

Central government bailouts of local governments are commonly viewed as a recipe for local fiscal indiscipline, as local governments learn that the center will come to the rescue in times of trouble. However, little is known about the consequences of bailouts granted conditional on local...

In this study, we analyse the sustainability of fiscal policy of EU member countries within the panel cointegration and error-correction frameworks. Unlike the previous empirical papers in this area, we apply the test for panel cointegration between the primary budget deficit and the public debt...

The economy of the European Union has not recovered from the impact of the economic and financial crisis. Growth rates remain low and investment activity is weak. This questions current economic policies of the Economic and Monetary Union, known as austerity. In opposition to fiscal contraction...

The paper shows that immigration can create an incentive for deficit-spending among natives. If immigrants use up some given share of public funds net of debt service, a policy of running budget deficits becomes optimal. The optimal budget deficits are higher, the higher the share of net public...

Euroland is in a crisis that is slowly but surely spreading from one periphery country to another; it will eventually reach the center. The blame is mostly heaped upon supposedly profligate consumption by Mediterraneans. But that surely cannot apply to Ireland and Iceland. In both cases, these...

The Euro area is currently going through its worst period of recession and economic stagnation since the Great Depression and World War II. The article tries to give an impression of the extraordinary degree of fiscal austerity and the devastating economic effects it has already had and must be...

The euro crisis remains unresolved and the euro currency union incomplete and extraordinarily vulnerable. The euro regime's essential flaw and ultimate source of vulnerability is the decoupling of central bank and treasury institutions in the euro currency union. We propose a 'Euro Treasury'...

This paper presents a comprehensive cross-country database of fiscal space, broadly defined as the availability of budgetary resources for a government to service its financial obligations. The database covers up to 200 countries over the period 1990-2016, and includes 28 indicators of fiscal...

For more than 25 years, the Social Security Trust Fund has been projected to run out of money in 2033 (give or take a few years), potentially causing benefits to be severely reduced in the absence of corrective legislative action. Today (February 2024), projections are made by the Social...