Within the economic profession, it is a widely held view that the fiscal criteria of the Maastricht treaty are arbitrary numbers without economic foundation. Much of this criticism seems to overlook an important aspect - the strategic dimension of the criteria. This paper focuses on one...

Putting the high public debt ratios on a downward path after the surge during the pandemic and allocating sufficient resources to deliver on the green and digital transition will be among the priorities confronting the EU institutions emerging from the June 2024 European elections. After a long...

There is evidence that a budget consolidation strategy can work with only a small and short lived negative impact on growth. However, this time consolidation is taking place in the aftermath of a deep crisis which had lead to increased levels of uncertainty. In addition the financial sector, as...

Europe is in the throes of budgetary consolidation, tightening its fiscal rules. It could not prevent the recession of 2012 and the inexorable growth of debt, especially in Southern Europe, while unemployment spreads and the social gap widens. Social policy is mostly a national matter, but is...

Die demographische Alterung tritt in Deutschland derzeit in akute Phase ein, die insbesondere in den gesetzlichen Sozialversicherungen zu finanziellen Anspannungen führt und mittelbar auch Risiken für die Entwicklung des Bundeshaushalts erzeugt. Dies wird im vorliegenden Bericht mit Hilfe von...

Die demographische Alterung erzeugt Risiken für die langfristige Tragfähigkeit der öffentlichen Finanzen in Deutschland, die bei haushaltspolitischen Entscheidungen bereits kurz- und mittelfristig zu beachten sind. Die im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen durchgeführte Untersuchung...

The concept of financial balances implies that the general government balance can be improved only if the enterprise sector and the foreign sector simultaneously increase their financial deficits and the household sector cuts its surplus. This paper explores how these adjustments can be...