The paper compares fiscal cyclicality across regions and countries from 1960 to 2016. It finds that more than half of 170 countries analyzed in seven regions had, in more recent years, limited fiscal space, and that their fiscal policy was either cyclical or procyclical. This was particularly...

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between the speed of buildup of private debt (household and corporate) and the depth of recessions. To do this, we differentiate between financial recessions and normal recessions on the basis of how quickly their private debt builds up. In...

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) is expected to start raising policy interest rates in the near term and thus commence a tightening cycle for the first time in nearly a decade. The taper tantrum episode of May-June 2013 is a reminder that even a long anticipated change in Fed policies can trigger...