Using an unbalanced panel of 27 OECD countries over the period 1970–2011, I examinewhether electoral motives influenced creative accounting. Governments engage in“below-the-line” operations, such as transactions in financial assets, that do not show upin the deficit figures but give rise...

Using an unbalanced panel of 27 OECD countries over the period 1970-2011, I examine whether electoral motives influenced creative accounting. Governments engage in "below-the-line" operations, such as transactions in financial assets, that do not show up in the deficit figures but give rise to...

This paper aims at shedding some light on the mechanisms of pricing the EMU countries’ sovereign bonds in financial markets. Employing the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator, we find that major changes have occurred in terms of variables underlying sovereign risk. Since 2009, macroeconomic...

The global surge in independent fiscal councils (IFCs) raises three related questions: How can IFCs improve the conduct of fiscal policy? Are they simultaneously desirable for voters and elected policymakers? And are they resilient to changes in political conditions? We build a model in which...

In this paper we develop a comprehensive short-term fiscal forecasting system of use for the real-time monitoring of the Spanish government’s borrowing requirement. Spain has been at the centre of the recent European sovereign debt crisis, not least because of sizeable failures in meeting...

This study presents empirical evidence about the determinants of long-term government bond yields for 19 economies of the European Monetary Union (EMU) over the period 1995-2018 within a multivariate panel framework. The fixed effects estimators reveal that the relationship between public debt...

This study presents empirical evidence about the determinants of long-term government bond yields for 19 economies of the European Monetary Union (EMU) over the period 1995-2018 within a multivariate panel framework. The fixed effects estimators reveal that the relationship between public debt...

Motivated the European debt crisis, we construct a tractable theory of sovereign debt and structural reforms under limited commitment. The government of a sovereign country which has fallen into a recession of an uncertain duration issues one-period debt and can renege on its obligations by...

This Discussion Paper presents an overview of Brazilian public finances through a meticulous work of adjusting and consolidating fiscal statistics, in which central government data were adjusted to deal with creative accounting and subsequently consolidated with data from subnational...

This Discussion Paper presents an overview of Brazilian public finances through a meticulous work of adjusting and consolidating fiscal statistics, in which central government data were adjusted to deal with creative accounting and subsequently consolidated with data from subnational...