The Basel Committee of Banking Supervision initiated a discussion on the most efficient practices to prevent bank managers from excessive risk-taking. This paper proposes a game-theoretical approach, describing the decision-making process by a bank manager who chooses his own level of risk and...

Per effetto della crisi economica che si è realizzata con particolare intensità nel corso del 2009, molte economie avanzate hanno intrapreso percorsi di risanamento fiscale. Nell'ambito di tali misure un ruolo non trascurabile è rappresentato dagli interventi di riduzione della spesa per il...

The paper revisits the empirical link between fiscal policy and macroeconomic stability. Our basic presumption is that by definition, the operation of automatic stabilizers should always and everywhere contribute to greater macroeconomic stability (output and consumption). However, two stylized...

The main purposes of this paper are twofold: a) to determine if there are significant differences on the determinants of public expenditures and tax revenues between the so-called PIGS and the remaining Eurozone member states; b) to uncover possible explanations for the different situations in...

Sovereign wealth funds exist in Russia for eight years. The Stabilization Fund was established in 2004 and later divided into the Reserve Fund and the National Wealth Fund. During this period the funds’ assets and functions changed significantly. The paper compares the actual uses of the funds...

The reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and the incorporation of “debt brake” rules into national legislation have heavily increased the importance of structural balances in economic policymaking in Europe. As defined by the European Commission, structural balances are calculated by...

This paper proposes indicators to assess government debt sustainability in the medium and long term. We follow the methodological approach by Bohn (2008) and distinguish three channels that contribute to sustainable government finances: economic growth, real interest payments and fiscal...

Economists are widely familiar with the Ricardian equivalence thesis. It maintains that, given the time-path of government spending, a change in taxation does not alter the set of feasible life-time consumption plans of the households and affects neither the demand for commodities and services...

This note identifies a severe mistake in my article “Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations” that appeard in this journal in the July 2013 issue.

Economists are widely familiar with the Ricardian equivalence thesis. It maintains that, given the time-path of government spending, a change in taxation does not alter the set of feasible life-time consumption plans of the households and affects neither the demand for commodities and services...