This paper assesses the OECD’s projections for GDP growth and inflation during the global financial crisis and recovery, focussing on lessons that can be learned. The projections repeatedly over-estimated growth, failing to anticipate the extent of the slowdown and later the weak pace of the...

With the recent debt crisis, the necessity of effective measures for safeguarding fiscal sustainability has become patent, leading to an intense debate. Most of the debate focuses on strengthening fiscal rules and restoring fiscal imbalances through austerity measures. In this paper, I address...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and great recession, many countries face substantial deficits and growing debts. In the United States, federal government outlays as a ratio to GDP rose substantially from about 19.5 percent before the crisis to over 24 percent after the crisis. In...

Despite signs of recovery from the global financial crisis, the GDP growth rate for the Indian economy is likely to be between 5.8 to 6.1 per cent in 2009-10, below the 6.7 per cent recorded in fiscal 2008-09. While there has been an improvement in Indian industry, particularly the manufacturing...

The Italian Great Recession has a double-dip pattern. After the start of the global financial crisis, Italy experienced a second serious recession in 2011 because of the sovereign debt crisis. The reaction of Italian governments was mild at the beginning and more convinced since the start of the...

Global growth prospects have deteriorated significantly since the beginning of the year, raising the specter of global recession. This paper relies on insights gleaned from previous global recessions to analyze the recent evolution of economic activity and policies and presents plausible...

Fiscal sustainability conditions for the Maastricht gross nominal consolidated public debt are analyzed using Hungarian data. The components of debt dynamics are grouped following the commonly used debts sustainability approach while the factors and their contributions to the changes of the debt...

The sharp rise in debt experienced by most OECD countries raises questions about debt indicators and the prudent government debt level countries should target. It also raises questions about the fiscal frameworks needed to reach the prudent debt level and to accommodate cyclical fluctuations...