This paper presents a framework to assess the likely impact of fiscal austerity in the Euro area, as a response to the turmoil in the financial markets. We provide some evidence on the sequence of events which generated public deficits and debts, and show that rising debts and deficits were the...

The classical argument for free trade stressed the possibilities of economic growth by exploiting the gains from trade. A trade surplus per se was not the main objective; presumably the argument was that trade would be balanced at the new higher growth rate. Moreover, the arguments for free trade...

This paper corrects an error in Palley (2013) and offers an alternative interpretation of the difference between Cambridge and Kaleckian growth models. Using a Cambridge model with a variable profit share and full utilization of capital, a fiscal transfer from capitalists to workers is shown to...

The sovereign debt crisis in the euro area has increased the interest in early warning indicators, with the aim to indicate the build?up of fiscal stress early on and to facilitate crisis prevention by a timely counteraction of fiscal and macroeconomic policies. This paper presents possible...

The global financial crisis rapidly spread across borders and financial markets, and also distressed EU bond markets. The crisis did not hit all markets in the same way. We measure the strength and direction of linkages between 16 EU sovereign bond markets using a factor-augmented version of the...

Small open economies within a monetary union have a limited range of stabilisation tools, as area-wide nominal interest and exchange rates do not respond to country-specific shocks. Such limitations imply that imbalances can be difficult to resolve. We assess the role that government spending...

In this paper, we create a model of business startup decisions by utility maximizing individuals to determine the impact of county occupational license taxes on business startups. We utilize a unique dataset generated by the Kentucky Entrepreneurship Survey which allows us to observe personal...

This paper studies relation between government spending on agribusiness sector and the political business cycles. Governments try to improve their reelection prospects with the help of expansionary fiscal policies. Rising fiscal deficits before elections are followed by fiscal consolidation...

One possible explanation for the European sovereign debt crises is that the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) gave rise to consolidation fatigue or even deliberate over-borrowing. This paper explores the validity of this explanation by studying how three decisive stages in the history...

In March 2013 around 130 participants from academia, banking and finance, governments and central banking gathered at the premises of the OeNB in Vienna for a conference jointly organized by the European Money and Finance Forum SUERF, the OeNB and the Austrian Society for Bank Research to...