Austerity measures are frequently enacted when the sustainability of public finances is in doubt. Such doubts are reflected in high sovereign yield spreads and put further strain on government finances. Is austerity successful in restoring market confidence, bringing about a reduction in yield...

Policy makers often implement austerity measures when the sustainability of public finances is in doubt and, hence, sovereign yield spreads are high. Is austerity successful in bringing about a reduction in yield spreads? We employ a new panel data set which contains sovereign yield spreads for...

This paper investigates the link between fiscal policy shocks and movements in asset markets using a Fully Simultaneous System approach in a Bayesian framework. Building on the works of Blanchard and Perotti (2002), Leeper and Zha (2003), and Sims and Zha (1999, 2006), the empirical evidence for...

We investigate the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy using a Bayesian Structural Vector Autoregression approach. We build on a recursive identification scheme, but we: (i) include the feedback from government debt (ii); look at the impact on the composition of output; (iii) assess the...

With a new quarterly dataset we estimate a Bayesian Structural Autoregression model and a Fully Simultaneous System approach to analyze the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy. Results show that positive government spending shocks, in general, have a negative effect on real GDP; lead to...