This paper presents an empirical examination of political cycles in Israel by examining the instruments of fiscal and monetary policy at the time of election campaigns. In common with the findings of similar empirical studies undertaken elsewhere, the economic data for Israel support the theory...

During times of economic crises, the public policy response is to abandon basic economic thinking and engage in ‘emergency economic’ policies. We explore how the current financial crisis was in part caused by previous emergency economic measures. We then investigate the theoretical...

This paper reviews the main macroeconomic trends and the debate on policy priorities in Italy since the advent of EMU. It argues that, in the decade up to the outbreak of the global crisis (1998-2007), in Italy the reform process came to a virtual standstill and fiscal policy was inconsistent...

We use a two-country model with a central bank maximizing union-wide welfare and two fiscal authorities minimizing comparable, but slightly different country-wide losses. We analyze the rivalry between the three authorities in seven static games. Comparing a homogeneous with a heterogeneous...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the theory of macroeconomic policy. We study the effect of various incentive constraints on the policy making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and divided government. The survey is organized in three...

Over the course of the 1990s, the US outperformed Europe not only in output growth, but also in productivity and employment generation, thereby stopping Europe's decade-long period of catching up. The author shows that the growth difference originates at least partly from insufficient investment...

The paper surveys the agenda needed to restore noninflationary growth in industrial countries. The role of fiscal policy as short-run stimulus both on the spending side and on the tax side is discussed. The author comments on trade, specifically the new trade round, and international finance....