Rising inequality and widespread poverty, social unrest and polarization, gender and ethnic disparities, declining social mobility, economic fragility, unbalanced growth due to technology and globalization, and existential danger from climate change are urgent global concerns of our day. These...

We decompose fiscal policy in three components: i) responsiveness, ii) persistence and iii) discretion. Using a sample of 132 countries, our results point out that fiscal policy tends to be more persistent than to respond to output conditions. We also found that while the effect of cross-country...

"We examine whether the behavior of current account balances changed in the years preceding the global crisis of 2008-09, and assess the prospects for global imbalances in the post-crisis period. Changes in the budget balance are an important factor affecting current account balances for deficit...

In this paper, we assess the impact of fiscal policy discretion on economic activity in the short and medium-term. Using a panel of 132 countries from 1960 to 2008, we find that fiscal policy discretion provides a net stimulus to the economy in the short-run and crowding-in effects are amplified...