President Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package (the “American Rescue Plan”) on March 11, 2021. Without a corresponding increase in taxes, this plan has set off alarm bells for those concerned about the expansion of government deficits and debt. Mainstream economists have raised...

Under ordinary circumstances, the fiscal implications of central bank policies tend to be seen as relatively minor and escape close scrutiny. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, demanded an extraordinary response by central banks which brought to light the immense power of central bank...

Under ordinary circumstances, the fiscal implications of central bank policies tend to be seen as relatively minor and escape close scrutiny. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, demanded an extraordinary response by central banks which brought to light the immense power of central bank...

The asset purchase programme of the euro area, active between 2015 and 2018, constitutes an interesting special case of Quantitative Easing (QE) because the ECB's Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) involved the purchase of peripheral euro area government bonds, which were clearly not...

The asset purchase program of the Euro area, active between 2015 and 2018, constitutes an interesting special case of Quantitative Easing (QE) because the ECB's (Public Sector Purchase Program) PSPP program involved the purchase of the bonds of peripheral Euro area governments, which were...

The 2008 and 2011 crises have durably affected the conditions of monetary policy transmission, particularly in the euro area. However, it is generally considered that the European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary policy truly became unconventional only at a late stage. Our contribution is...

This paper reviews developments in the Cypriot economy following the introduction of the euro on 1 January 2008 and leading to the economic collapse of the island five years later. The main cause of the collapse is identified with the election of a communist government in February 2008, within...

Serious fiscal vulnerabilities arising from many years of high government/GDP ratios have created new and complex interactions between public debt management and monetary policy. Although their formal mandates have not changed, recent balance sheet policies of many central banks have tended to...

This paper argues that serious fiscal vulnerabilities arising from many years of high government debt will create new and complex interactions between public debt management (PDM) and monetary policy (MP). The paper notes that, although their formal mandates have not changed, recent balance...

We estimate, using a previously unexploited set of data for the Italian public debt, quarterly yield curves over the period 1970-1996 to test the main implications of the expectations hypothesis theory (EH). Our empirical results show that short-term interest rates move according to the...