This paper examines the link between fiscal rules and public investment both normatively and empirically. We first review the arguments for and against including public investment spending in a fiscal deficit rule. We then seek to assess the determinants of public investment, with a special...

We examine the evolution of public investment and public capital stocks in Europe during the past three decades. Against this background, we employ an array of econometric techniques to assess the macroeconomic determinants of public investment, with a special focus on its long-term trend. We...

This paper investigates whether there is a lack of public capital in European Union countries. The analysis builds on a new database providing internationally comparable capital stock estimates for 22 OECD countries, among these 14 EU countries, for the period 1960-2001. A simple model of...

In this paper, we estimate the aggregate and sectoral fiscal multipliers of EU Structural Investment (ESI) Funds and of public investment at the EU level. We complement these results with a specific application to the case of Slovenia. We first analyze aggregate data and find large and...

The concept of the "quality of public finances" (QPF) covers many qualitative and structural issues of fiscal policy. This chapter traces the origins of the concept of QPF to the Lisbon Strategy and the subsequent EPC Working Group on "Quality of Public Finances" (2004‐2007). At its core, the...

This paper employs a two-country New Keynesian DSGE model to assess the macroeconomic impact of the changes in monetary policy frameworks and the fiscal support in the U.S. and euro area during the pandemic. Moving from a previous target of “below, but close to 2 percent” to a formal...

This paper analyses the impact of fiscal rules on different public spending categories, namely public expenditure and investment, at the subnational level in Europe. Building on the notion of the deficit bias, we suspect that in the presence of fiscal rules, politicians have an incentive to...

The authors set up a political economy equilibrium framework for personal income distribution. Located in status theory, their concept is able to explain what justifies a certain or optimal degree of inequality in the society. The authors present an empirical analysis of personal income...

This paper analyses the effects of EU regional policy transfer payments on net migration flows among the EU-28 countries. The hypothesis is tested that EU transfer payments do hamper internal migration across the EU. On the one hand, this is done by reestimating the results found by Egger,...

We investigate the relationship between diversity and productivity in Europe using an original dataset covering the NUTS 3 regions of 12 countries of the EU15 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, former Western Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United...