With the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union and the euro, the national government debt of eurozone member-states became credit sensitive. While the potentially destabilizing impact of adverse cyclical conditions on credit-sensitive debt was seriously underestimated, the design was...

The current fiscal imbalances and fragilities in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC) are the result of decades of instability, but have become more visible since 2008, when a combination of adverse economic and political shocks (the global and European financial crises, Arab...

The monetary and fiscal policy interactions have gained a new research interest after the 2008 crisis due to the global increase of fiscal debt. This paper constructs a macroeconomic model of joint fiscal and monetary policy for an emerging open economy taking into account its structural...

The euro crisis remains unresolved and the euro currency union incomplete and extraordinarily vulnerable. The euro regime's essential flaw and ultimate source of vulnerability is the decoupling of central bank and treasury institutions in the euro currency union. We propose a “Euro Treasury”...

Europe remains a tempting destination for East Asian SWFs. Almost a third of their investments have been committed to EU countries. Nearly all of the assets have been invested by Chinese and Singaporean funds. The investment policy of East Asian SWFs has significantly evolved over the past few...

Congress has expressed interest, one way or the other, in a balanced-budget requirement for the past six decades. Yet despite numerous attempts, the legislative body has never passed a constitutional balanced-budget amendment. Most of the analysis of why we don't yet have a constitutional...

This paper offers a few remarks on the so-called heterodoxy commentaries of recent times. It will be highlighted that, in accordance with the growing popularity of non-usual economic policy actions, a set of “tools” is emerging that aims to exert its effects breaking with usual, common,...

The objective of this paper is to assess whether external debt makes a difference for public debt stabilization, where external debt is considered through the non-residents' holdings according to a Balance of Payments perspective. The analysis is empirical and considers the case of Italy, one of...

Over the last few decades, real interest rates have trended downward in many countries. The most common explanation is that this reflects depressed demand due to demographic, technological and other real factors such as income inequality. In this paper we explore the claim that these trends may...

Public debt management has gained prominence over the last years. The pursuit of an adequate public debt composition is critical to the objective of minimizing long term financing costs, while ensuring the maintenance of prudent risk levels. In this sense, we devise a benchmark for the public...