In the present paper an empirical analysis will point out that austerity measures due to high levels of government debt as a percentage of GDP have (among others) a positive impact on social unrest measured by the number of strikes. The empirical findings of the present paper support the view of...

In the present paper an empirical analysis will point out that government debt as a percentage of GDP has a negative impact (among others) on banking profitability. This impact will be even worse when this debt as a percentage of GDP exceeds a certain critical level. The sample covers during the...

This paper estimates the impact of fiscal consolidation on unemployment and job market flows across EU countries using a recent database of consolidation episodes built on the basis of a 'narrative' approach (Devries et al., 2011). Results show that the impact of fiscal consolidation on cyclical...

This study provides empirical evidence that the costs of austerity crucially depend on the level of private indebtedness. In particular, fiscal consolidations lead to severe contractions when implemented in high private debt states. Contrary, fiscal consolidations have no significant effect on...

This paper assesses the relationship between public and private wages in the EU, as measured by general government and manufacturing compensations, respectively. We find that the long-run relation between the two is stronger when the government is a large employer. Manufacturing compensations...

During the sovereign debt crisis, many Euro countries have deployed "austerity packages" implementing structural reforms and cutting government spending. Such policies should have led to an initial decline in GDP followed by recovery and a reduction of the debt to gdp ratio. Key to this outcome...

We analyze the non-linear effects of government spending for the Euro area in recession, by using local projection method and by testing whether the impact of the shock depends crucially on the levels of public debt or the depth of the recession. We provide three insights. First, expenditure...

Die Debatte um Konsolidierung im Euroraum wird von der Frage dominiert, ob Konsolidierung dem Wachstum schadet. Der Beitrag gibt einen kurzen Überblick zum Diskussionsstand über die Zusammenhänge zwischen Konsolidierung und Wachstum. Darüber hinaus werden gängige Forderungen analysiert, die...

This paper analyzes German and Spanish fiscal policy using simple policy rules. We choose Germany and Spain, as both are Member States in the European Monetary Union (EMU) and underwent considerable increases in public debt in the early 1990s.We focus on the question, how fiscal policy behaves...

The short-term effects of fiscal consolidation have attracted an increasing attention from both the academia and policy makers in the recent years. Authors in the literature on non-Keynesian effects usually put the emphasis on the need for the devaluation of the national currency, the...