Policy makers often implement austerity measures when the sustainability of public finances is in doubt and, hence, sovereign yield spreads are high. Is austerity successful in bringing about a reduction in yield spreads? We employ a new panel data set which contains sovereign yield spreads for...

This paper shows that debt-financed fiscal multipliers vary depending on the maturity of debt issued to finance spending. Utilizing state-dependent SVAR models and local projections for post-war US data, we show that a fiscal expansion financed with short term debt increases output more than one...

"The untold story of how FDR did the unthinkable to save the American economy. The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression,...