Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of this century. Mitigation requires a large-scale transition to a low-carbon economy. This paper provides an overview of the rapidly growing literature on the role of macroeconomic and financial policy tools in enabling this transition. The...

The worst global downturn since the Great Depression has caused ballooning budget deficits in most nations, as tax revenues collapse and governments bail out financial institutions and attempt countercyclical fiscal policy. With notable exceptions, most economists accept the desirability of...

Economic growth is projected to be strengthening from mid-2011 onwards, but will be insufficient to restore the sustainability of public finances. The Belgian strategy to prefund ageing costs by generating fiscal surpluses to bring down public debt was derailed by the global crisis. Restoring...

The public economic policy debate often touches on the issue of the federal budget deficit. Proposals for legal budget-balancing measures often make the stage. But the proponents often fail to account for the economic policy consequences of their proposals. A constitutional amendment to mandate...

Several countries have employed countercyclical fiscal policy to ameliorate the impact of the global financial crisis. This study identifies some of the issues and policy implications associated with this policy response in developing countries. Included are case studies of four developing...

Discretionary fiscal policies have arisen because of dominant Keynesian economic policies from 1930's to 1970's. Public expenditures intensively and excessively increased in order to ensure macroeconomic stability during this period. Many countries faced the emergence of macroeconomic problems...

The main focus of the present paper is to analyze the impacts of financial policy on inflation rates. The analysis depended on time series data and was divided into theoretical and applied analytical framework. An econometric model was utilized to reflect the relations between financial policy...

The financial crisis and economic recession, and policymakers' responses to these events, have raised sovereign risk concerns in a number of advanced economies. This has increased the cost and reduced the stability of funding for banks. It has also meant that decisions about the maturity of...

The paper presents a simple model for discussing the effects of deficit limits and budget rules on fiscal policy. I find that limits on deficit-output ratios provide incentives to implement procyclical policies when the economy is in intermediate states, and countercyclical policies only in very...

The recent recovery in Latin America has been impressive but also raises the question whether this represents a fundamental break with the region's history of boom-bust cycles. The paper traces how this history of macroeconomic volatility and financial crisis over the past century has adversely...