SURVEY: This article shows that applied econometric is not a way of selecting, from among a plethora of possible explanations of public spending evolution. It lists 19 explanations and 73 explanatory variables and provides evidence of the great confusion in this field and the relative emptiness...

Wagner’s Law is the first model of public spending in the history of public finance. The aim of this article is to assess its empirical evidence in Italy for the period 1960-2008 at a disaggregated level, using a time-series approach. After a brief introduction, a survey of the economic...

Israel’s monetary policy framework is broadly sound. Inflation targeting was introduced in the early 1990s, and low single-digit inflation was established by the end of the decade. However, fast transmission from the exchange rate to inflation means the operational challenges differ somewhat...

This paper examines various aspects of fiscal policy in Slovenia, in particular fiscal consolidation, pension reform, efficiency of government spending and the tax system. It finds that Slovenia belongs to the group of new EU member countries, which have given in the past a high priority to...

Wagner's Law is the first model of public spending in the history of public finance. The aim of this study is to assess its empirical evidence in Italy for the period 1960–2008 at a disaggregated level, using a time series approach. After a brief introduction, a survey of the economic...

The present article underlines the idea that tasking projects with economic potential fiscal tools will supply help for investments by the way of lending guarantees, equity and other risk-bearing which includes policy based on guarantees for European Social Funds. Except for the shown advantages...

As countries develop, the main driver of economic growth shifts from imitation to innovation. These two sources of growth require different policies and institutions. In particular, in this article we argue that the transition from an imitation-based to an innovation-based economy calls the old...

This paper studies how society votes on the payroll taxes of a basic income and a social health insurance scheme. Individuals differ along the two most important dimensions when it comes to the design of the two welfare schemes, namely, income and risk. Even though the introduction of a basic...

Following ECB-president Draghi's remark that the European Social Model does no longer exist and the crisis can only be overcome through a combination of austerity and structural reform, this paper examines the consequences of austerity measures and structural reforms adopted during the crisis in...

This paper revisits the question of why more open countries tend to have bigger governments. We replicate successfully the main results of Ram (2009), who rejects the role of country size as an omitted variable. However, several extensions advise against a hasty conclusion: The results differ...