This paper concentrates on the golden rule of public finance. It reviews the main advantages and disadvantages of the potential implementation of this rule in the European Union. Often the question of the productivity of public capital is at the heart of the rule’s discussions. As this issue...

Using bootstrap panel analysis, allowing for cross-country correlation, without the need of pre-testing for unit roots, we study the causality between government spending and revenue for the EU in the period 1960-2006. We find spend-and-tax causality for Italy, France, Spain, Greece, and...

In the discussions of the need for fiscal rules and their usefulness in a monetary union researchers have not agreed on whether the financial markets have a sufficiently disciplining effect on the governments, which would mean that the fiscal rules are not necessary. This paper investigates...

In the discussions of the need for fiscal rules and their usefulness in a monetary union researchers have not agreed on whether the financial markets have a sufficiently disciplining effect on the governments, which would mean that the fiscal rules are not necessary. This paper investigates...

Rather than stabilising aggregate demand, discretionary fiscal policy tends to amplify cyclical fluctuations of output. The commonly accepted reasons are political economy and uncertainty. In the EU, the pro-cyclical nature of discretionary fiscal policy has also been associated with the...

We assess the cyclicality of fiscal policy in the 19 Euro area countries, notably during recessions, for the period 1995-2020. We use a time-varying measure of fiscal cyclicality to describe fiscal policy developments. The results suggest that during recessions discretionary fiscal policy...

Rather than stabilising aggregate demand, discretionary fiscal policy tends to amplify cyclical fluctuations of output. The commonly accepted reasons are political economy and uncertainty. In the EU, the pro-cyclical nature of discretionary fiscal policy has also been associated with the...

Ensuring fiscal sustainability in the Member States of the European Union has become an extremely important goal in the current economic context. The formulation of appropriate policies can lead to fiscal consolidation, and the manifestation of a fiscal shock with direct implications on national...