Countries can make a clean exit from financial assistance, or enter a new programme or a precautionary programme, depending on the sustainability of their public debt and their vulnerability to shocks. Ireland made a clean exit in December 2013, supported by significant budgetary and...

Countries can make a clean exit from financial assistance, or enter a new programme or a precautionary programme, depending on the sustainability of their public debt and their vulnerability to shocks. Ireland made a clean exit in December 2013, supported by significant budgetary and...

Many factors have contributed to the euro crisis. Some have been addressed by policymakers, even if belatedly, and European Union member states have been willing to improve the functioning of the euro area by agreeing to relinquish national sovereignty in some important areas. However, the most...

Without corrective measures, Greek public debt will exceed 190 percent of GDP, instead of peaking at the anyway too-high target ratio of 167 percent of GDP of the March 2012 financial assistance programme. The rise is largely due to a negative feedback loop between high public debt and the...

The European Semester is a new institutional process that provides EU member states with ex-ante guidance on fiscal and structural objectives. The Semester’s goals are ambitious and it is still uncertain how it will fit into the new EU economic governance framework. We find that member states...

Fiscal rules, such as the excessive deficit procedure and the stability and growth pact (SGP), aim at constraining government behavior. Milesi-Ferretti (2003) develops a model in which governments circumvent such rules by reverting to creative accounting. The amount of this creative accounting...