This paper proposes a redemption fund for the euro zone countries alternative to that recently proposed by Doluca et al. (2012) – The European Redemption Pact: an Illustrative Guide, GCEE Working Paper No.2, February – and in coherence with a previous proposal of one of the author. In doing...

The aim of the paper is to outline the characteristics that an optimal fiscal system has to fulfill. Starting from the hypothesis that high-debt EU countries may be suffering from higher tax induced distortions to their economy whereas the lower-debt counterparts will not, we expect taxes to...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy rules in a fiscal federation, such as the European Union. The focus of the analysis is the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the monetary authority. Each of the countries structures its fiscal policy...

We examine the historical dynamics of government debt in post-unification Italy, from 1861to 2009. Unit root tests for the debt-GDP ratio are unable to reject either the non-stationarity or the stationarity null hypothesis. Controlling debt dynamics for fiscal feedback policies of the Barro-Bohn...

This paper puts the original Reinhart-Rogoff dataset, made public by Herndon et al. (2013), to a formal econometric test to pin down debt threshold endogenously. We show that the nonlinear relation from debt to growth is not very robust. Taken with a pinch of salt, our results suggest, however,...

Using a dynamic optimization model, Ricardian Equivalence (RE) is empirically tested for Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The system of equations obtained in the theoretical model is solved using Generalized Method of Moments and Full Information Maximum Likelihood. Results indicate that the...

The current regulations concerning the issuance of municipal guarantees are both unclear and limitative, therefore restricting their use by the local public authorities as an effective support measure for public investments of local interest. Whilst focusing on procedural issues and on the...

The paper attempts to assess to what extent the central bank or the government should respond to developments that can cause financial instability, such as housing or asset bubbles, overextended budgetary policies, or excessive public and household debt. To analyse this question we set up a...

In this paper, institutions are described which are designed to reach sustainability of public finances in the Swiss cantons. These are on the one hand direct popular rights, the fiscal referendum in particular, which allow citizens to express their fiscal preferences. These are on the other...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the planned changes in European financial law, whose purpose is to restore balance and control over the public finances of Member States of the European Union. The problem of rising debt among EU countries made it necessary to review existing and new...