This paper provides evidence that most German states (Laender) have unsustainable public finances by exploiting a newly compiled database covering the years 1950‐2011. Although the Laender are closely intertwined we are the first to apply “second generation” panel techniques that control...

This paper provides long- and short-run tax buoyancy estimates for a group of 12 Caribbean countries over the period 1991-2017. Using panel regressions , the study found that the long- and short-run tax buoyancy estimates are statistically greater than one. However, the results vary by tax...

There are competing “views” on the economic effects of debt finance. One view argues that tax and debt finance have identical effects on various economic measures, a view sometimes termed “Ricardian Equivalence”. However, this “Ricardian view” remains controversial, with other views...

We document large differences between the United States and France in allocations of consumption expenditures and time by age. Using a life-cycle model, we quantify to what extent tax and transfer programs and market and home productivity can account for the differences. We find that while labor...

In 2009 the Australian government delivered approximately $8 billion in direct payments to households. These payments were pre- announced and randomly allocated to households based on postal codes over a 5-week period. We exploit this random allocation to estimate the causal response of...

This paper studies the impact of the state-dependent risk of a government default on the correlation of the scal balance and current account. We use a small open economy model where nonlinear risk premia arise endogenously when the government operates close to its scal limit, i.e. the maximum...

Recent fiscal policies have aimed to stimulate household spending. In 2008, most households received one-time economic stimulus payments. In 2009, most working households received the Making Work Pay tax credit in the form of reduced withholding; other households, mainly retirees, received...

Recent fiscal policies have aimed to stimulate household spending. In 2008, most households received one-time economic stimulus payments. In 2009, most working households received the Making Work Pay tax credit in the form of reduced withholding; other households, mainly retirees, received...