We study the consequences of non-neutrality of government debt for macroeconomic stabilization policy in an environment where prices are sticky. Assuming transaction services of government bonds, Ricardian equivalence fails because public debt has a negative impact on its marginal rate of return...

The United States Congress approved the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) on February 13, 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on February 17, 2009. ARRA was passed in response to widespread fears that the United States was in danger of slipping into a...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

The business cycles theories of Wicksell (1898), Schumpeter (1912), Mises (1912), Hayek (1929, 1935) and Minsky (1986, 1992) explain business cycles by distorted prices on capital markets, buoyant credit expansion and overinvestment. The exuberance during the boom endogenously causes the...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

Do business cycle fluctuations leave a role and a welfare case for an active stabilization policy by means of fiscal policy instruments? We address this issue in a two-sector open economy model with price-taking firms and imperfect competition in the labour market. Fiscal policies are shown to...

Die tiefe Rezession in der Finanzkrise, aber auch das mäßige Wachstum danach haben Forderungen laut werden lassen, die Konjunktur nicht nur durch eine expansive Geldpolitik, sondern auch durch aktive fiskalpolitische Maßnahmen anzuregen. Mitarbeiter und Vorsitzender des Sachverständigenrates...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

This paper studies how macroprudential policy tools can complement the interest rate-based monetary policy in achieving a selection of dual stabilization objectives. We show analytically in a canonical New Keynesian model with collateral constraints that using the loan-to-value ratio as an...

Recent debate has focused on the introduction of a central stabilisation capacity as a completing element of the Economic and Monetary Union. Its main objective would be to contribute cushioning country-specific economic shocks, especially when national fiscal stabilisers are run down. There are...