We analyze fiscal consolidations using a New-Keynesian model where agents have finite planning horizons and are uncertain about the future state of the economy. Both consumers and firms are infinitely lived, but only plan and form expectations up to a finite number of periods into the future....

The past decade has witnessed an increase in populist movements across the world. Some of those movements have gained strong political support and formed populist governments promising new sets of economic and fiscal policies. This raises the pertinent policy question: how do such populist...

The past decade has witnessed an increase in populist movements across the world. Some of those movements have gained strong political support and formed populist governments promising new sets of economic and fiscal policies. This raises the pertinent policy question: how do such populist...

In response to the global crisis a number of new institutional measures have been introduced in the fiscal framework, both on the UE and on the member states’ level, and the question is: have these measures provided better fiscal sustainability outcomes? We approach this question by looking at...

Barro's model is an AK model, and there cannot be dynamic ineffciency since the social yield of the capital is higher than the growth rate. But it may be that the private yield and thus the interest rate are lower than the growth rate. One can thus have a Ponzi game and the government can allow...

The European Union's constitutional balanced-budget amendment, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), dictates that EU member states keep their budget deficits within three percent of GDP and that government debt be kept at or below 60 percent of GDP. After 20 years, unintended consequences of the...

In this paper we make use of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to examine how the quality of budget institutions affects fiscal performance – Primary Balance and Public Debt – in sub-Saharan Africa. To organize our approach, we categorize sub-Saharan Africa countries according to the two main...

The euro area's sovereign debt crisis continues though significant steps have been taken to resolve it. This paper proposes a comprehensive solution to the crisis based on three pillars: a plan to restore banking sector soundness in the whole euro area, a resolution of sovereign debt crisis...

A windfall of natural resource revenue (or foreign aid) faces government with choices of how to manage public debt, investment, and the distribution of funds for consumption, particularly if the windfall is both anticipated and temporary. We show that the permanent income hypothesis prescription...

We offer a new methodology for the assessment of public debt sustainability in a stochastic economy when sovereign default taken into account. The default threshold differs from the no-Ponzi condition and depends on the post-default debt recovery rule. We distinguish sustainability and...