We study the evolution of the public debt to GDP ratio during 40 fiscal consolidation episodes in 21 OECD countries in 1980-2008. We test within a multivariate regression framework seven hypotheses put forward in the literature on the success or failure of consolidation programmes. These...

En este trabajo se analiza la política fiscal en Colombia y la postura del gobierno frente a la crisis internacional (2008-2009). Utilizando una regla de política se concluye que la política fiscal discrecional ha sido procíclica, ha reducido su volatilidad en los últimos años y ha sido...

The global crisis interacted heavily with fiscal policy in the run-up to the crisis, during the crisis and now in the recovery phase. Contrary to the general consensus, the paper argues that in the run-up to the crisis, fiscal policy in the advanced economies and China substantially contributed...

We study sovereign bond yields in OECD countries with a dynamic panel by checking for cross-section dependence; assessing panel cointegration; and estimating panel errorcorrection models. The results show that markets consider budgetary and external imbalances and inflation as relevant...

Recently governments, economists, and international financial institutions have been debating the merits of further fiscal stimulus to combat the Great Recession versus fiscal austerity or “adjustment” – that is, higher taxes and/or lower government spending – to combat budget deficits....

With the economy suffering from near double-digit unemployment, public debate is dominated by concerns over the budget deficit and national debt. This discussion is unfortunate both because there is no reason for people to be concerned about the deficit at present, and more importantly, because...

If women make different economic decisions than men on average, then an increase in women's influence in the political and economic spheres of society might change economic outcomes. In this note, we focus on the impact of female enfranchisement on fiscal policy outcomes. We present a simple...

This paper estimates a fiscal policy reaction function in order to investigate the links between financial and real estate market movements and fiscal policy outcomes. An increase in asset prices affects in a positive and significant manner primary balances, with the response reflecting both an...

This article is focused on fiscal stimulus and exit strategies in a small euro area economy. The analysis is based on a New-Keynesian general equilibrium model with non-Ricardian features introduced in Almeida, Castro and Félix (2010). We define a benchmark fiscal stimulus and, conditional on...

This study assesses the short and long-run behaviour of long-term sovereign bond yields in OECD countries, for the period 1973-2008. We employ a dynamic panel approach to reflect financial and economic integration, and to increase the performance and accuracy of the tests. Given the existence of...