This paper analyzes the growth and employment effects of dynamic fiscal policies in an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth and imperfect labour markets. With balanced-budget policies, the modelled closed economy grows at a constant rate which is the higher, the lower are the...

We study the effects of aging population on the sustainability of fiscal policy in overlapping generations models with government debt and a pay-as-you-go pension system. The smaller the population growth rate, the lower the maximum sustainable level of deficits. When the utility function is of...

This paper examines the ability of alternative classes of growth models to explain the historical experience of the U.S. economy. The potential returns to the U.S. from raising its investment rate in terms of both the level and growth rate of future output are then quantified. The long-run...

The volume collects the essays presented at the 15th Workshop on Public Finance organised by Banca d'Italia in Perugia from 4 to 6 April 2013. The workshop focused on the link between fiscal policy and macroeconomic imbalances and comprised four sessions. The first session concentrated on the...

This paper investigates the short-run effects of economic growth on carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement for 189 countries over the period 1961–2010. Contrary to what has previously been reported, we conclude that there is no strong...

Does the state of the business cycle matter for the effects of fiscal policy shocks on GDP? This study analyses quarterly German data from 1976 to 2009 in a threshold SVAR, expanding the SVAR approach by Blanchard and Perotti (2002). In a linear benchmark SVAR, the analysis finds that hiking...

This paper examines why fiscal policy is procyclical in developing as well as developed countries. We introduce the concept of fiscal transparency into a model of retrospective voting, in which a political agency problem between voters and politicians generates a procyclical bias in government...

In this paper we analyze how the availability of credit influences the relationship between government size as a proxy for fiscal stabilization policy and the amplitude of business cycle fluctuations in a sample of advanced OECD countries. Interpreting relatively low loan-tovalue ratios as an...

The objective of the article is to identify impact of economic policy implications on current financial and economic crisis. The analysis examines a hypothesis that the main causes of financial and economic crisis include unbalanced developments of the macroeconomic sphere as well as existing...