Adopted in 1997 and implemented in 1999 with the euro, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) addresses concerns of budgetary discipline in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). After many breaches and the failure of the implementation of fines, Europe amended the SGP on 20 March 2005. In the new...

After the fuzziness in Europe that surrounded the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure foreseen by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), the European Union had to restore the credibility of the weakened fiscal rule. The constraint was to keep alive the Treaty of Amsterdam. Indeed, an...

After the fuzziness in Europe that surrounded the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure foreseen by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), the European Union had to restore the credibility of the weakened fiscal rule. On March 2005, the 25 members amended the SGP. The constraint was to...

The paper proposes an empirical method to measure the free riding possibility of public deficits in Europe. We use a cross-sectional time-series analysis of differences in national public deficits since 1991, and we compare the evolution of deficits before and after the inception of the euro in...

Adopted in 1997 and implemented in 1999 with the euro, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) addresses concerns of budgetary discipline in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). After many breaches and the failure of the implementation of fines, Europe amended the SGP on 20 March 2005. In the new...

The existing literature on political budget cycles looks at the temptation for incumbent governments to run a greater deficit before an election by considering the characteristics of the incumbent. We propose here to look at the signals the incumbent receives from the voters. For this purpose,...

This paper addresses the question of a technical change in one the components of the Stability and Grown Pact (SGP). Indeed, the SGP is composed of (1) a political commitment, (2) a preventive element, and (3) a dissuasive element, and an improvement of the SGP efficacy can come from any of...