Über Jahrzehnte war die deutsche Fiskalpolitik von der Idee geprägt, dass die Tragfähigkeit der öffentlichen Finanzen an der Schuldenquote zu messen sei; die Schuldenquote wiederum sei am besten über das jährliche Haushaltsdefizit zu kontrollieren. Mit der Einführung der Schuldenbremse...

The sustainability of public finances should be measured by the debt-to-GDP ratio; the debt-to-GDP ratio is best controlled by keeping the deficit in check. For decades, these ideas shaped German fiscal policy. In 2009, with the introduction of the debt brake, this approach found its way into...

This paper examines the fiscal challenges that the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (NEW-8) are facing that arise from both EU membership and from developments that are essentially independent of EU membership. While the direct fiscal strains caused by EU membership may appear...

Latin America has been strongly affected by the international crisis and recession since late 2008. In comparison to historical experience, how has Latin America coped with the global crisis, which has been the role of different transmission mechanisms, and how have the region's structural and...

After a long period in which state-led development was the dominant economic paradigm, since the 1980s private sector development has been the focus for economic policy makers. It is probably no coincidence that economic growth, stagnant for a few decades in much of the developing world, took...

The expansion of Spanish banks in Latin America is one of the most important elements of bank internationalisation in recent years. Spanish banks now head the ranking of foreign banks in the region. At first glance, it is paradoxical that at a time of notable progress in the process of European...

Fiscal rules are instrumental for restraining deficit and spending biases in euro area Member States that could threaten the smooth functioning of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Ideally, fiscal rules should combine characteristics such as sufficient flexibility to allow for appropriate...

Schätzungen des Produktionspotenzials und der Produktionslücke einer Volkswirtschaft sind von großer Bedeutung für die Wirtschaftspolitik. Sie spielen eine wesentliche Rolle für den Europäischen Stabilitäts- und Wachstumspakt und für die im Grundgesetz verankerte Schuldenbremse. In der...

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 studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy shocks under different exchange rate regimes within a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model. We first suggest that by estimating the effects of fiscal policy shocks in two structurally similar small open economies that have...