The German debt brake is often regarded as a great success story, and has therefore served as a role model for the Euro area and its fiscal compact. In this paper we fundamentally criticize the debt brake. We show that (1) it suffers from serious shortcomings, and its success is far from certain...

Aufgrund der seit langem geführten Debatte um das Für und Wider der Nutzung des Politikinstruments der Staatsverschuldung wissen wir recht viel darüber, was Experten (z. B. Finanzpolitiker/‌-‍wissenschaftler) von Haushaltskonsolidierung, Deficit-Spending oder Verschuldungsgrenzen halten....

In the P-star model the price level is determined by the money stock per unit of potential output and the long-run equilibrium level of the velocity of money. This article applies this model to Austria. Problems in identifying permanent shocks to potential output and/or velocity lead to the...

The debate on the cyclical adjustment procedure of the debt brake has focused on problems with regards to potential output. The second key determinant of the cyclical budget component, however, has been neglected: the semi-elasticity of the budget balance, which measures the response of federal...

In this article, after a brief sketch of the fiscal strategy of the German Government and the current budgetary situation, it is first argued that the current budget dispute could have been avoided because the coalition essentially created the dispute through two fiscal (mid)decisions last year....

On the basis of an empirical application for Germany, we compare two methods for measuring fiscal sustainability, the Generational Accounting approach and the OECD-Method. We show that both methods can be transferred into each other. Therefore the indicators belonging to one method can be used...

In this paper we test whether German public debt has been sustainable by resorting to a test proposed by Bohn (1998). We apply non-parametric and semi-parametric regressions with time depending coefficients. This test shows that the mean of the coefficient relevant for sustainability has been...

This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and,...