This chapter surveys the recent literature on the theory of macroeconomic policy. We study the effect of various incentive constraints on the policy making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and divided government. The survey is organized in three...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the theory of macroeconomic policy. We study the effect of various incentive constraints on the policy making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and divided government. The survey is organized in three...

The Broad Economic Policy Guidelines contain the answers of the European Commission and the governments of the EU-member countries to the European growth and employment problems. These guidelines have been the major EU-economic policy concept for around ten years now. They can be seen as a...

This document analyzes the patterns of fiscal and monetary policy in five economies of the Latin American Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) during four episodes of international crises: 1994, 1997-1999, 2001 and 2008. In contrast with earlier episodes when most...

This paper seeks to identify the most promising fiscal strategy to boost long-term economic growth in Argentina and quantify its effects. To this end, the authors updated a growth-diagnostics study for Argentina and corroborated that low appropriability of social returns and insufficient public...

This paper discusses why Greece has done so poorly in comparison with all other European Union countries since the onslaught of the global financial crisis in 2008. To show what was wrong with its fiscal adjustment, this paper compares Greece with the other European Union country that was hit be...

The implementation of economic reforms under new economic policies in India was associated with a paradigmatic shift in monetary and fiscal policy. While monetary policies were solely aimed at "price stability" in the neoliberal regime, fiscal policies were characterized by the objective of...

The current fiscal imbalances and fragilities in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC) are the result of decades of instability, but have become more visible since 2008, when a combination of adverse economic and political shocks (the global and European financial crises, Arab...

This report attempts to examine the impact of the crisis and crisis policies on incomes, inequality and poverty in Greece. Based on extensive income and tax data, it investigates changes in incomes, direct, indirect and property taxation and their incidence between 2008 and 2012-13, their impact...

Japan is in the midst of a demographic transition that is both rapid and large by international standards. As recently as 1990, Japan had the youngest population among the Group of 6 large, developed countries. However, the combined effects of aging of the baby boomer generation and low...