The need of fiscal consolidation is likely to dominate the policy agenda in the next decade; starting from statistical evidence on the conduct of fiscal policy in the EMU area over the last decade, this paper addresses the optimality of alternative fiscal consolidation strategies. We explore the...

We develop a model to analyze the macroeconomic effects of a scaling-up of aid and assess the implications of different policy responses. The model features key structural characteristics of low-income countries, including varying degrees of public investment efficiency and a learning-by-doing...

We tested, empirically, whether the Brazilian fiscal policy for the period between 1995: I to 2008: III was active or passive. To analyze fiscal policy transmission mechanisms, we estimated functions by which the public debt/GDP ratio affects investment, primary surplus, output gap and the...

Existing accounts of counterterrorist policies posit that defensively oriented measures create negative externalities and result in regulatory competition inducing governments to increasingly tighten their policies. We argue that rather than causing an unconditional global ‘race to the top,'...

The need for macroprudential policy to “lean against the wind” of credit cycles at the aim of financial and hence macroeconomic stability is a common belief. Which design of macroprudential policy might attain the greatest stability for the economy is still an open debate. This paper builds...

This paper assesses how and in what circumstances, fiscal consolidations are affected by monetary conditions, using data covering 24 OECD countries over the past 25 years, Focusing on fiscal consolidation quot;episodesquot;, it is found that these tend to occur when large budget deficits...

The strong US policy response to the 2008-09 financial crisis raised concerns about its impact(spillovers) on other countries, with great focus on the monetary stimulus but little attention to fiscal policy, despite their combined deployment. Using a sign-restricted structural VAR approach, we...

Macroprudential policy holds the promise of becoming a powerful tool for preventing financial crises. Financial amplification in response to domestic shocks or global spillovers and pecuniary externalities caused by Fisherian collateral constraints provide a sound theoretical foundation for this...

We show that policy uncertainty about how the rising public debt will be stabilized accounts for the lack of deflation in the US economy at the zero lower bound. We first estimate a Markov-switching VAR to highlight that a zero-lower-bound regime captures most of the comovements during the Great...

This policy brief discusses the risks of deflation for the European economy. It critically evaluates the European economic governance for not having averted this risk and discusses how a more coordinated approach to both fiscal policy and collective wage bargaining, both aiming at national...