At a time with growing fears of excessive government debt and of overburdened future generations Swiss fiscal policy seems to be the virtuous role model to be followed. Whereas almost everywhere else government debt has been increasing dramatically after the global economic and financial crisis...

We analyse the newly updated Stability Programmes of the Euro area governments by applying the simple accounting identity by which the financial balances of the government, the private sector and the foreign sector always sum to zero. While the focus of the old Stability and Growth Pact was...