We show that policy uncertainty about how the rising public debt will be stabilized accounts for the lack of deflation in the US economy at the zero lower bound. We first estimate a Markov-switching VAR to highlight that a zero-lower-bound regime captures most of the comovements during the Great...

1. Introduction -- 2. Forgotten worlds: the stagflation of the 1970s -- 3. From Volcker to China: The “Great Moderation” begins -- 4. Houses made of sand: The “Global Financial Crisis” -- 5. Trojan horses: the long shadow of the euroarea sovereign crisis -- 6. COVID 19: the fiscal and...

This paper surveys the empirical research on fiscal institutions of the last three decades. The main results are: (i) Constitutional or statutory fiscal limitations have in most cases proved to be effective in cutting down public expenditure, revenue, and debt. (ii) Budgetary proce-dures matter...