Post-apartheid South Africa is facing three major economic problems: (1) slack economic growth, (2) high and growing unemployment and (3) among the world's highest income inequality and poverty indices. South Africa is currently caught in a macro-economic straight-jacket of tight monetary,...

This paper explores the effects that the global financial crisis of 2008 - 2010 had on the funding and performance of the healthcare and education sectors in the Russian Federation (RF). Both education and healthcare expenditures increased in terms of total general government (GG) spending...

We investigate the impact of fiscal variables on bond yield spreads relative to US Treasury bonds in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey from May 1998 to December 2007. To account for the importance of market expectations we use projected values for fiscal and macroeconomic...

In this note, I examine how the responsiveness of the Swedish public budget to business-cycle conditions has developed between 1998 and 2009. I document substantial changes in three components behind the budget elasticity: (i) the average level of personal income taxes has fallen substantially,...

Social security revenues are influenced by business cycle movements. In order to support the working of automatic stabilizers it would be necessary to calculate social insurance contribution rates independently from the state of the business cycle. This paper investigates whether European...

The Bank of Canada Global Economy Model (BoC-GEM) is used to examine the effect of various types of discretionary fiscal policies on different regions of the globe. The BoC-GEM is a microfounded dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium global model with six regions, multiple sectors, and...

In Japan ist das reale Bruttoinlandsprodukt im Jahr 2002 nur um 0,2% gestiegen. Die Arbeitslosenquote lag im Jahresdurchschnitt bei 5,4%, und die Preise sanken - im vierten Jahr in Folge - um 0,9%. In diesem Jahr dürfte das reale BIP um 2,7% expandieren. Auf dem Arbeitsmarkt wird sich keine...

Nach kurzer Abschwungphase als Folge der weltweiten Rezession im IT-Bereich und der Verunsicherung durch die Anschläge vom 11. September kam es im Jahr 2002 bereits wieder zu einer spürbaren Erholung der US-Wirtschaft. Das Bruttoinlandsprodukt legte mit 2,4% wieder deutlich zu. Getragen war...

The paper provides an evaluation of the development of the South African economy since the end of apartheid in 1994. Taking the 1993 situation as the point of departure, it gives an account of the path leading to the formulation of the major policy documents, and examines to what extent their...