The EMU assigns a very marginal role to economic policy and relies on the leading idea that, if prices are kept constant, there will be an automatic convergence towards long-run equilibrium income. These beliefs represent the theoretical underpinnings of fiscal and monetary policy strategies in...

Post-apartheid South Africa is facing three major economic problems: (1) slack economic growth, (2) high and growing unemployment and (3) among the world¡¯s highest income inequality and poverty indices. South Africa is currently caught in a macro-economic straight-jacket of tight monetary,...

We develop a medium-sized annual macroeconometric model of the Italian economy. The theoretical framework is the usual AS/AD model, where the demand side is specified along Keynesian lines, and the supply side adopts a standard neoclassical technology, with Harrod neutral technological progress....

The monetarist counterrevolution and the stagflation period of the 1970s were among the theoretical and practical developments that led to the rejection of fiscal policy as a useful tool for macroeconomic stabilization and full employment determination. Recent mainstream contributions, however,...

In the face of the dramatic economic events of recent months and the inability of academics and policymakers to prevent them, the New Consensus Macroeconomics (NCM) model has been the subject of several criticisms. This paper considers one of the main criticisms lodged against the NCM model,...

This paper presents the main features of the macroeconomic model being used at The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, which has proven to be a useful tool in tracking the current financial and economic crisis. We investigate the connections of the model to the New Cambridge" approach, and...

We study a demand-driven growth and distribution model with a public sector, both without and with government debt. Government spending is used to finance the accumulation of public capital and to pay wages to public employees. The interaction between public capital and induced technical change...

This paper employs fifteen dynamic macroeconomic models maintained within the European System of Central Banks to assess the size of fiscal multipliers in European countries. Using a set of common simulations, we consider transitory and permanent shocks to government expenditures and different...

The paper analyses the effectiveness of fiscal tools at the zero lower bound (ZLB). A non-linear New Keynesian DSGE model with occasionally binding constraints on monetary policy and borrowing is applied. When the ZLB binds in a liquidity trap, government spending becomes more effective in...

We analyze money financing of fiscal transfers (helicopter money) in two simple New Keynesian models: a "textbook" model in which all money is non-interest-bearing (e.g., all money is currency), and a more realistic model with interest-bearing reserves. In the textbook model with only...