The past several years of recession and slow recovery have raised much interest on the effect of fiscal stimulus on economic activity, even as high public debts in many countries would call for fiscal consolidation. To evaluate the delicate balance between stimulus and consolidation requires...

Prospective economic developments depend on the behavior of consumer spending. A key question is whether private expenditures recover once social distancing restrictions are lifted or whether the COVID-19 crisis has a sustained impact on consumer confidence, preferences, and, hence, spending....

This work examines the benefits and risks of using available classes of uncertainty indexes for policy purposes, clustered in three broad categories: survey-based, model-based, and news-based. In both policy discussions and the academic literature news-based indexes are the ones that have...

This paper explores how the saving behavior of state governments is affected by adopting the budget stabilization fund (BSF) and by the state's balanced budget requirements (BBR). As a fiscal/budgetary institution, BSFs with unique design features and varying combinations of the BBR articles...

Prospective economic developments depend on the behavior of consumer spending. A key question is whether private expenditures recover once social distancing restrictions are lifted or whether the COVID-19 crisis has a sustained impact on consumer confidence, preferences, and, hence, spending....

Economic research shows that candidates have a higher chance of getting (re-)elected when they have the luck that the world economy does well even though this is beyond their control and unrelated to their competence. Psychological research demonstrates that candidates increase their chances if...

In the last decade of XX century, has expanded the area of capital movements, which included the former socialist countries. Thus, the countries that are attracting some of the centers of the capital and at the same time, participate in the export of capital, it is impossible not to have engaged...

Previous studies used general government data to examine whether national governments' electoral motives and ideology influenced budget composition in OECD countries. General government data includes, however, the state and local level. Using new data for general and central government over the...

This paper analyzes recent macroeconomic developments in the eurozone, particularly in Germany. Several economic indicators are sending signals of a looming German recession. Geopolitical tensions caused by trade disputes between the United States and China, plus the risk of a disorderly Brexit,...

What fraction of the business cycle volatility of government purchases is accounted for as endogenous reactions to overall macroeconomic conditions? We answer this question in the framework of a neoclassical representative household model where the provision of a public consumption good is...