Against the commonly accepted view that in the run-up to EMU the Maastricht fiscal restraints were quite effective in re-aligning public finances in Member States that were showing large excessive deficits, Strauch and von Hagen stress that there are some objections concerning this initial sign...

The U.S. fiscal cliff has sparked renewed interest on the issue of fiscal sustainability. Using a time-varying parameter model with a longer data set (1916-2011), there is evidence that the response of primary surplus-income ratio to debt-GDP ratio shows (1) substantial variation over time, (2)...

" Keeping the economy strong will require addressing two distinct but related problems. Steadily rising federal debt makes it harder to grow our economy, boost our living standards, respond to wars or recessions, address social needs, and maintain our role as a global leader. At the same time,...

This paper uses the OECD's economic model, INTERLINK, to examine the consequences of eliminating the U.S. federal government deficit. Such action could lead to either lower real interest rates, lower inflation rates or a smaller current account deficit, depending on the stance of monetary...