Why would people support policies that are macroeconomically unsound, in that they are more likely to lead to such events as sovereign crises, balance of payments crises, and the like? This may arise if decisive voters are likely to bear a lower fraction of the costs of the crisis, while...

Achieving fiscal convergence between countries of a monetary union helps in the design and implementation of policies to strengthen macroeconomic convergence, which mitigates the contagion effects of macroeconomic instability and ensures the long-term viability of the proposed union. This paper...

The paper starts with a view on public debt as a current and historical phenomenon. Then follows a short review of traditional explanations for the debt-state link. Three different approaches are distinguished, the first one building on institutional economics, the second one on applications of...

The fourth book in the 'European Public Investment Outlook' series focuses on the urgent issue of how to finance needed investment in critical tangible and intangible infrastructure given high levels of public debt, a thorny problem facing many governments across Europe. Drawing on expertise...