This paper analyzes the relation between nominal exchange rate volatility and several macroeconomic variables, namely real output growth, excess credit, foreign direct investment (FDI) and the current account balance, in the Central and Eastern European EU member states. Using panel estimations...

The aim of this paper is to assess the consequences of banking crises for public debt. Using an unbalanced panel of 154 countries from 1980 to 2006, the paper shows that banking crises are associated with a significant and long-lasting increase in government debt. The effect is a function of the...

The aim of this work is to assess the short and medium term impact of banking crises on developing economies. Using an unbalanced panel of 159 countries from 1970 to 2006, the paper shows that banking crises produce significant output losses, both in the short and in the medium term. The effect...

This paper provides evidence on the impact of major epidemics from the past two decades on income distribution. The pandemics in our sample, even though much smaller in scale than COVID-19, have led to increases in the Gini coefficient, raised the income share of higher-income deciles, and...

Conventional wisdom holds that voters punish governments that implement fiscal austerity. Yet, most empirical studies, which rely on ex-post yearly austerity measures, do not find supportive evidence. This paper revisits the issue using action-based, real-time, ex-ante measures of fiscal...

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between business cycle volatility and country size using quarterly data for a sample of OECD countries over 1960-2000. The results suggest very strongly that the relationship between country size and business cycle volatility is...

We use a new approach to assess long-term fiscal developments. By analyzing the timevarying behaviour of the two components of government spending and revenue – responsiveness and persistence – we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal behaviour. Drawing on quarterly data we estimate...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of government spending on the private sector, assessing the existence of crowding-out versus crowding-in effects. Using a panel of 145 countries from 1960 to 2007, the results suggest that government spending produces important crowding-out effects,...

We use a new approach to assess long-term fiscal developments. By analyzing the time-varying behaviour of the two components of government spending and revenue – responsiveness and persistence – we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal behaviour. Drawing on quarterly data we estimate...