The main focus of this paper is the relation between the cyclical components of total revenues and expenditures and the budget balance in France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. We try to uncover past trends behind the development of public finances that contribute to explaining the current stance...

The study looks at primary expenditure developments in the euro area, its three largest members and four “macro-imbalances” countries for the period 1999-2009. It compares actual expenditure trends with those that would have prevailed if countries had followed neutral policies based on...

According to the 2001 Spanish budgetary previsions, the government deficit is about to disappear. We analyse this matter within a generational accounting framework. Accounting for the recent expansive phase of the economic cycle, we find that current fiscal policy is also intertemporally...

This paper analyzes German and Spanish fiscal policy using simple policy rules. We choose Germany and Spain, as both are Member States in the European Monetary Union (EMU) and underwent considerable increases in public debt in the early 1990s.We focus on the question, how fiscal policy behaves...

Die im Zuge der Einführung des Euro beschlossenen Obergrenzen für die staatliche Neuverschuldung und den Schuldenstand - die sogenannten Maastricht-Kriterien - sind für die Stabilität der Gemeinschaftswährung wie die Konsolidierung der nationalen Haushalte von zentraler Bedeutung. Da sie...

Wenn andere Staaten noch schlechter als Deutschland dastehen, mindert das nicht im Geringsten den Handlungsdruck in Deutschland: Ohne konsequente Beachtung der Schuldenbremse und ohne überfällige Strukturreformen werden nach den Ergebnissen der Generationenbilanz auch wir Deutsche zu Griechen...

The euro area's sovereign debt crisis continues though significant steps have been taken to resolve it. This paper proposes a comprehensive solution to the crisis based on three pillars: a plan to restore banking sector soundness in the whole euro area, a resolution of sovereign debt crisis...

This background paper describes in detail the assumptions and calculations behind the results presented in Zsolt Darvas, Jean Pisani-Ferry and André Sapir 'A comprehensive approach to the euro-area debt crisis', Bruegel Policy Brief No 2011/02, February 2011. An assessment of the results and...

Was Spanish fiscal policy destabilizing? We estimate policy reaction functions and test the impact of fiscal shocks on growth volatility over the period 19501998. We find that a transition from pro-cyclical to countercyclical fiscal policy occurred in the late years of the Franco regime,...