Much has been written on the impact of the global financial crisis on Europe, Asia and the Americas but only little on the Arab states. This article makes an early attempt to take stock of recent developments in the Arab world and offers a systematic approach to disentangle the various...

Political economy theory expects that changes in macroeconomic governance are often catalyzed by institutional factors, such as partisanship, elections, or IMF conditionality. I challenge and contextualize this view by incorporating the role of technocratic advisors into a domestic policymaking...

This paper presents a possible solution to financial crises by addressing the core of the problem of systemic risk. To get there, it first illustrates a number of crises related situations before the definition of systemic risk is detailed. It then explains challenges of systemic risk and...

This paper analyzes recent macroeconomic developments in the eurozone, particularly in Germany. Several economic indicators are sending signals of a looming German recession. Geopolitical tensions caused by trade disputes between the United States and China, plus the risk of a disorderly Brexit,...

A frequently neglected aspect of financial booms and busts - financial cycles - is their impact on fiscal positions. And yet, the latest financial crisis and history show that these cycles can wreak havoc with public finances. After reviewing the impact of financial cycles on fiscal positions,...

We evaluate proposals for independent fiscal authority put forward as a solution to excessive public spending. Our main conclusion is that moving the responsibility to set broad measures of fiscal policy from the hands of government to an independent fiscal council is not necessarily welfare...

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic impact of China's 2009-2010 fiscal stimulus package by simulating a dynamic general equilibrium multi-country model of the world economy, showing that the effects on China's economic activity are sizeable: absent fiscal stimulus China's GDP would be 2.6 and...

The 2008 financial crisis is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1929. It has been characterised by a housing bubble in a context of rapid credit expansion, high risk-taking and exacerbated financial leverage, leading to deleveraging and credit crunch when the bubble burst....

Macedonia's economy was not left behind by the global economic crisis as the country's macroeconomic policymakers had hoped! Certainly, an economy open at all and with a high degree of direct dependence on European and global economies in general should not be saved by the crisis in financial...

We evaluate proposals for independent fiscal authority put forward as a solution to excessive public spending. Our main conclusion is that moving the responsibility to set broad measures of fiscal policy from the hands of government to an independent fiscal council is not necessarily welfare...