With the global crisis, the policy stance around the world has been shaken by massive government and central bank efforts to prevent the meltdown of markets, banks, and the economy. Fiscal packages, in varied sizes, have been adopted throughout the world after years of proclaimed fiscal...

With the global crisis, the policy stance around the world has been shaken by massive government and central bank efforts to prevent the meltdown of markets, banks, and the economy. Fiscal packages, in varied sizes, have been adopted throughout the world after years of proclaimed fiscal...

The article is a comment on Alessandrini and Fratianni (2015) (A&F), on how can the euro area cope with inter-regional differences in the absence of fiscal union. A&F develop a model to support their proposals, against which twomain remarks are raised here. First, diverging current account...