Many researchers have recommended to increase public debt in the aftermath of the financial crisis in order to relax borrowing constraints for private households. This advice is based on the common assumption that borrowing conditions of private agents are exogenous to public policy. We study...

Using VAR analysis on US data, we show that unanticipated fiscal expansions boost private consumption and business formation. Models with an extensive investment margin, i.e. endogenous firm and product entry, have difficulties explaining these two phenomena simultaneously. Considering different...

The future of government / John M. Quigley -- Intergovernmental relations, service provision and the delivery of health care in California / John M. Quigley -- The decentralization of the Belgian government / Lynn C. Todman -- The economic development and fiscal structure under a federal system...

In studies concluding that public debt may hamper GDP growth, the debt tipping effects are estimated as if there were a single global currency. This means that such studies ignore the likely biggest cause of changes in growth rates, namely damage from exchange rate liquidity shocks because we do...