This study analyzes the emergence of secular stagnation as the consequence of a rise in the preference for liquidity. Such a rise is caused by a persistent set of pessimistic expectations. This study also investigates the effectiveness of a broad range of demand-management policies in dealing...

Central banks’ economic and political importance has grown in advanced economies since the start of the Great Financial Crisis in 2007. An unwillingness or inability of governments to use countercyclical fiscal policy has made monetary policy the only stabilization tool in town. However, much...

This study on Germany examines the long-run changes between the financial and the non-financial sectors of the economy, and in particular the effects of these changes on the macroeconomic developments that have led or contributed to the financial crisis starting in 2007 and the Great Recession...

We analyse the proposed "Stability Pact" for countries joining a European Monetary Union (EMU). In an EMU shortsighted governments fail to fully internalise the inflationary consequences of their debt policies. This results in excessive debt accumulation. Therefore, while in the absence of EMU...

There is a significant literature related to the causes of the recent financial crisis, but the costs and measures that it involved are still under discussion. The recent turmoil has proved to be more costly in terms of GDP growth and public debt. The smaller fiscal costs were due, in part, to...

This paper offers a comprehensive review of macroeconomic policy in democratic South Africa. It does so with two distinctive features. First, macroeconomic policy is analysed on four interlocking, and sometimes conflicting, levels: [1] policy as provided “on paper” in government plans and...

The recent sovereign debt and subprime crises affected the world economy and highlighted the role and importance of policy coordination against adverse scenarios (price, demand, supply and external shocks, etc.). This paper asses the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policy coordination, for...

We investigate the drivers of excess interbank liquidity in Pakistan, using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach on weekly data for December 2005 to July 2011. We find that the financing of the government budget deficit by the central bank and non-banks leads to persistence in excess...

The recent financial and economic crisis has triggered bold and diverse policy responses to prevent further, sharper and prolonged adverse effects to the financial and the real sector. The measures for alleviating the cycle were a feature both of the advanced and the emerging and developing...

The pressures on fiscal consolidation have mounted dramatically in the wake of the Greek and then the 'contagion' crisis which followed it (across the so-called 'weakest links' Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland). It led to the setting-up of the 750 billion euro stabilisation package widely seen as...