This paper uses a structural, large dimensional factor model to evaluate the role of 'news' shocks (shocks with a delayed effect on productivity) in generating the business cycle. We find that (i) existing small-scale VECM models are affected by 'non-fundamentalness' and therefore fail to...

This paper uses the old-Keynesian representative agent model developed in Farmer (2010) to answer two questions: 1) do increased government purchases crowd out private consumption? 2) do increased government purchases reduce unemployment? Farmer compared permanent tax financed expenditure paths...

In this article we quantify the aggregate, distributional and welfare consequences of investment expensing and progressivity in flat-tax reforms of the United States economy. We find that investment expensing as in the Hall and Rabushka type of reform brings about sizable output gains and a...

We use micro data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to document how households' tax liabilities vary with income, marital status and the number of dependents. We report facts on the distributions of average and marginal taxes, properties of the joint distributions of taxes paid and income,...

The Stipulations of Treaty of Maastricht concerning the Monetary and Economic Union offer a new dimension to the politics of general taxation, by strict limitation of the governments’ possibility on financing the public outgoings by loans. The Accord for Steadiness and Development foresees...

This article analysis the concept of fiscal pressure and fiscal optimum. A comparative study of the fiscal pressure between Romania and the other EU member states has also been made. The academic literature analyzes the specific problem of the fiscal pressure from all points of view and the...

Severely affected by the crisis, considered as the deepest one since the Great Depression between 1929-1933, the European Union’s economy has recorded the sharpest decline in its history starting with the end of 2007. In response to this downturn, interventions included implementing the...

The year 2010 showed how prone to crisis the Euro zone is. To a great extent this results from insufficient public policy coordination of EU member states’ public and fiscal policies. This paper discusses the main reform proposals related to fiscal, public and structural policy against the...

The chapter argues for rules to coordinate monetary and fiscal policies. But the rules are rule like only in imposing forward-looking behaviour, while they allow the discretion to respond to shocks. They would serve to anchor expectations, and align private sector actions with desired outcomes....

It is our duty to insist, by repetition, on some aspects linked with possible exit from the present crisis, observing that the general approach has had the temptation to derail from the well known and very simple rules imposed either by theory or practice in connection with the business cycle...