We develop a New-Open-Economy-Macro model in which Ricardian equivalence does not hold because of (i) distortionary labor and corporate income taxation; (ii) limited asset market participation; and (iii) because the overlapping-generations structure results in a disconnect between current and...

This paper uses an overlapping generations model with international labor mobility and a politically responsive fiscal policy to examine aging in developed and developing regions. Migrant workers change the political structure composed of young and elderly voters in both labor-receiving and...

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the effectiveness of fiscal policy. The focus is on the size of fiscal multipliers, and on the possibility that multipliers can turn negative (i.e., that fiscal contractions can be expansionary). The paper concludes that fiscal...

The paper examines fiscal sustainability issues for the case of Eritrea but has wider implications for addressing fiscal and debt sustainability. It begins with a formal definition and explanation of analytical sustainability indicators, followed by an assessment of the causes of fiscal deficits...

In this paper, we estimate the effect of defense spending on the U.S. macroeconomy since World War II. First, we construct a new panel dataset of state-level federal defense contracts. Second, we sum observations across states and, using the resulting time series, estimate the aggregate effect...

The Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP), central to the Stability and Growth Pact, is criticized for both its procyclical effects and – in contrast – a perceived lack of enforcement. To test its actual effects, we construct a real-time database of EDP recommendations and estimate augmented...

This paper estimates the causal effect of fiscal rules on fiscal balances in a panel of 142 countries over the period 1985-2015. Our instrumental variable strategy exploits the geographical diffusion of fiscal rules across countries. The intuition is that reforms in neighboring countries may...

This paper investigates the determinants of fiscal policy behavior and its time-varying volatility, using panel data for a broad set of advanced and emerging market economies during the period 1990–2012. The empirical results show that discretionary fiscal policy is influenced by policy...

We estimate the employment effect of a large fiscal stimulus in Spain (PlanE), in which the national government transferred funds to municipalities to carry out local investment projects. Using a difference-in-difference approach by exploiting variation in the timing of the execution of projects...

This paper examines the role of tax policy reforms in enhancing fiscal shock smoothing in a panel of 13 OECD economies during the period 1980-2017. The results suggest that tax reforms, in particular those that broaden the tax base, significantly enhance the ability of fiscal policy to mitigate...