We quantify the fiscal multipliers in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. We extend the benchmark Smets-Wouters (Smets and Wouters, 2007) New Keynesian model, allowing for credit-constrained households, the zero lower bound, government capital and distortionary...

Fiscal rules have become popular to limit deficits and high debt burdens in industrialized countries. A growing literature examines their impact based on aggregate fiscal performance. So far, no evidence exists on how fiscal rules influence deficit expectations of fiscal policy makers. In the...

This paper considers the effects of inaccurate real-time output data on fiscal policy, both with respect to budgetary planning and fiscal surveillance. As newer and better information becomes available, output data available in real time get revised and are likely to conflict with final figures...

This paper considers the implications of complementarity in private production and constraints on government for optimal fiscal policy. Using an endogenous growth model with public finance, it derives three central results which modify findings in the literature under standard assumptions....

We investigate the political determinants of risk premiums which sub-national governments in Switzerland have to pay for their sovereign bond emissions. For this purpose we analyse financial market data from 288 tradable cantonal bonds in the period from 1981 to 2007. Our main focus is on two...

There is a growing empirical literature studying whether fiscal rules reduce borrowing costs. Nevertheless, it remains an open question whether these rules are effective genuinely or just because they mirror fiscal preferences of politicians and voters. In our analysis of European bond spreads,...

This paper introduces a methodological innovation into Generational Accounting. By incorporating cyclically-adjusted balances into the forward-looking budget projections underlying the concept we isolate pure policy effects, which render comparisons of the fiscal sustainability indicators...

We contribute to the literature on the long-run effect of fiscal consolidation on economic growth by applying a novel method for quantitative case studies. Relying on a qualitative (narrative) definition of fiscal consolidations based on an examination of historical policy documents and using...

We contribute to the literature on the long-run effect of fiscal consolidation on economic growth by applying a novel method for quantitative case studies. Relying on a qualitative (narrative) definition of fiscal consolidations based on an examination of historical policy documents and using...