Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen in den südeuropäischen EU-Ländern haben oft nur begrenzten Zugang zu Krediten. Der Präsident des Europäischen Parlaments, Martin Schulz, möchte diese Unternehmen fördern, um die Arbeitslosigkeit zu verringern. Auch der neue Präsident der EUKommission,...

Based on a panel data model this paper investigates whether the effects of fiscal policy on national saving in Europe have changed after the Maastricht Treaty came into force. Recently Giavazzi, Jappelli and Pagano (2000) found evidence that national saving responds nonlinearly to fiscal policy...

Until the early 1990s, the discussions on fiscal policy primarily centered on the functions of economic stabilization, income redistribution and resource allocation. Long-term growth was not usually viewed as an end itself, and fiscal policy was often not sufficiently tailored to the different...

What is the current state of sovereign credit risk across Euro zone? Does the recent fiscal crisis extend to other (non Euro zone) countries? Is Greece the center of the problem? How did the current fiscal crisis in the Euro area start? Who is behind it? Why can it evolve? How can it be...

The recent European economic crisis has dramatically exposed the failures of the various institutional mechanisms in place to maintain economic stability in Europe, and has unveiled the difficulty in achieving international coordination on fiscal and financial stability policies. Drawing on the...

In light of the UK Coalition Government's announced intention to reform APD (Air Passenger Duty), this article examines the design flaws making APD an inadequate environmental tax. By identifying the misconceived consequences and environmental inefficiencies of this blunt instrument, the need...

Families with dependent children are among the social groups most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the development of measures applied by the Czech national government for compensating families with children during the COVID-19 crisis. It summarizes the aims of the measures...

The 2005 reform of the EU Stability and Growth Pact has provided leeway for governments to let their fiscal deficit temporarily breach the 3% rule to finance the immediate budgetary cost of structural reform, such as compensation schemes to offset redistributive effects. Against this backdrop,...

An early criticism of the Stability and Growth Pact has pointed to its asymmetric nature and the weak mechanisms to prevent politically-motivated fiscal policies: its constraints would bite in downswings but not in upswings, especially if in the latter the electoral cycle increases the...

Based on a panel data model this paper investigates whether the effects of fiscal policy on national saving in Europe have changed after the Maastricht Treaty came into force. Recently Giavazzi, Jappelli and Pagano (2000) found evidence that national saving responds nonlinearly to fiscal policy...