Societies often rely on simple rules to restrict the size and behavior of governments. When fiscal and monetary policies are conducted by a discretionary and profligate government, I find that revenue ceilings vastly outperform debt, deficit and monetary rules, both in effectiveness at curbing...

The core emphasis of rules-based fiscal legislation at the subnational level in India is to achieve debt sustainability through a numerical ceiling on borrowing and the use of borrowed resources for public capital investment by phasing out revenue deficits. Using the Arellano Bond Panel...

While European countries have engaged in a debate about fiscal policy rules, little is known about the ability of these rules to ensure stable debt and output paths when taxes are distortionary, particularly in a small open economy. In this situation, it turns out that the interaction between a...