We analyze the effectiveness of an increase in government consumption for stimulating growth for diverse levels of public debt in the European Union. We conclude, that growth rate can be stimulated in the short run by an increase in government consumption but only at low levels of public debt....

Governments can issue public debt for both good and bad reasons. The former include intertemporal tax smoothing, fiscal stimulus, and asset management. In contrast, the bad reasons, which generate higher indebtedness, are mainly associated with political cycles, rent capture, intergenerational...

Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital...

This paper dwells on the Eurozone woes and addresses the origins of the transition from a fictitious boom to a painful bust by unravelling (i) the supply-side structural imbalances that formed the core-periphery economic divide, and (ii) the necessity of the periphery's sovereign debt to finance...