This paper studies how the effects of government spending vary with the economic environment. Using a panel of OECD countries, we identify fiscal shocks as residuals from an estimated spending rule and trace their macroeconomic impact under different conditions regarding the exchange rate...

Interest-rate spreads fluctuate widely across time and countries. We illustrate this on the basis of about 3,100 quarterly observations for 21 advanced and 17 emerging economies since the early 1990s. Prior to the financial crisis, spread fluctuations in advanced economies are an order of...

Interest-rate spreads fluctuate widely across time and countries. We characterize their behavior using some 3,200 quarterly observations for 21 advanced and 17 emerging economies since the early 1990s. Before the financial crisis, spreads are 10 times more volatile in emerging economies than in...