Fiscal policy choices have a particularly significant impact on economic performance in oil-exporting countries, owing to the importance of the oil sector in the economy and the fact that in most countries oil revenues accrue to the government. At the same time, fiscal policy in oil-centred...

Economics literature suggests that, even in the absence of fiscal costs, a persistently high and increasing public debt ratio may have a detrimental effect on long run economic growth in an economy that is not over-accumulating capital like Finland today. High public debt creates expectations...

The financial crisis and recession have left a legacy of unusually large fiscal deficits and growing sovereign debt levels in most advanced economies. The paper uses recent research from the IMF to throw light on two questions: how much fiscal space is available to advanced countries before they...

This paper focuses on roots of strain in the European Monetary Union (EMU). It argues that there is need for a thorough reform of the governance structure of the Union in conjunction with radical changes in the regulation and supervision of financial markets. Financial intermediation has gone...

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on fiscal consolidation and the questionable effectiveness of the Stability and Growth Pact by addressing the problem of economic governance in the EMU with a game-theoretic principal-agent approach. Following the theory of delegation, we develop a...

Euro Area member states have agreed to introduce a structural budget balance target to their national legislation (Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance). However, there exists no commonly agreed methodology to calculate this macroeconomic indicator. This report presents the...

This paper provides a characterization of the fiscal policy framework in four established federal countries with heterogeneous intergovernmental relations and demographic characteristics: Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the United States. We consider the implications of fiscal federalism from...

The report analyses the fiscal and macroeconomic environment in the lagging regions and the relevant Member States of the EU, as a sound and sustainable macroeconomic framework is a necessary, but by itself not a sufficient precondition for investment and growth in the regions. It starts with...

This report is an annex to wiiw Research Report 421, 'Economic Challenges of Lagging Regions I Fiscal and Macroeconomic Environment'. It provides eight detailed country case studies, analysing the fiscal and macroeconomic environment in Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania...

This volume includes five self-contained chapters in the fields of public debt and fiscal transfer schemes. After an introduction to the topic, chapter 2 shows that the institutional setting of fiscal policy making needs to be considered when assessing the sustainability of fiscal policy. Using...