This paper examines the impact of budgetary institutions on public finances in the European Union on the basis of a critical survey of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. In general, the authors find that fiscal institutions (namely fiscal rules) have successfully contributed to...

This paper reviews the evolution of the Economic and Monetary Union from its inception in 1992 with the Treaty of Maastricht to the most recent reforms adopted in 2013 to respond to the eurocrisis. The paper describes the evolution of the four pillar of economic governance: the surveillance and...

In this paper we construct Financial Conditions Indices (FCIs) for the euro area, for the period 2003 to 2011, using a wide range of prices, quantities, spreads and survey data, grounded in the theoretical literature. One FCI includes monetary policy variables, while two versions of the FCI...

This paper analyses the cyclicality of fiscal policy (discretionary versus automatic) for 28 advanced economies over 1995-2021 by paying special attention to the Covid-19 crisis. We find evidence that discretionary fiscal policy during the Covid-19 crisis (2020-2021) was significantly more...

This paper studies how fiscal rules interact with the intergovernmental fiscal framework to foster fiscal discipline among European subnational governments. We use political variables describing the fiscal attitudes of the central government as instruments to obtain consistent estimates of the...

This paper studies how fiscal rules interact with the intergovernmental fiscal framework to foster fiscal discipline among European subnational governments. We use political variables describing the fiscal attitudes of the central government as instruments to obtain consistent estimates of the...

This paper describes the institutional flaws that led to the euro crisis, assesses the institutional reforms that were put in place during and in the aftermath of the crisis, and evaluates the remaining fragilities of the architecture of the European monetary union. In mid-2017, growth in the...

This paper discusses the future of the Stability and Growth Pact (hereafter SGP). Although Neoclassical economic models argue that strict fiscal and monetary rules minimize moral hazard and crowding out, in practice many governments adopt fiscal expansion (in recent years in the form of...

After the financial and economic crisis in Europe, a broad consensus has emerged that a stronger fiscal dimension may be needed to complete the architecture of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This paper analyses the performance of interregional transfers in existing fiscal-federal systems,...

After the financial and economic crisis in Europe, a broad consensus has emerged that a stronger fiscal dimension may be needed to complete the architecture of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This paper analyses the performance of interregional transfers in existing fiscal-federal systems,...