This paper provides a study of bond yield differentials among EU government bonds on the basis of a unique data set of issue spreads in the US and DM (Euro) bond market between 1993 and 2009. Interest differentials between bonds issued by EU countries and Germany or the USA contain risk premiums...

We analyse different forms of debt mutualisation in a union of countries. One country suffers from a political distortion and may resort to (partial) debt default. We consider a debt repayment guarantee, which can be “unlimited” or ”limited”, i.e. only be invoked when the guarantee...

We analyze the short and long-run effects of demographic ageing – increased longevity and reduced fertility – on per-capita growth. The OLG model captures direct effects, working through adjustments in the savings rate, labor supply, and capital deepening, and indirect effects, working...

It is believed that a common monetary policy in a monetary union will have identical effects on different countries as long as these countries have identical fundamentals. We show that, when there is specialization in production, the terms of trade react to the shock. The transmission mechanism...

We evaluate the growth and welfare effects of budget-neutral reforms in the US tax system. Large gains in welfare and growth could result from adopting a consumption-based tax system. In contrast, significant welfare and growth losses would follow after implementing an income tax-based reform....

In an OCDE panel, for the period 1970–2010, we assess the effects of fiscal consolidation episodes, with four different definitions. Our results reveal that lower final government consumption increases private consumption in three out of the four approaches, when a fiscal consolidation occurs,...

Fiscal harmonization among the European Union member states is a goal involving major difficulties for its implementation. Each country faces a particular trade-off between fiscal revenues generated by taxation and the productive efficiency loss induced by their respective tax code. This paper...

It is commonly believed that higher budget deficits raise interest rates. However, these crowding out effects of increasing public debt have usually been found to be small or non-existent. One explanation is that on globalised bond markets interest rate differentials are offset due to financial...

The objective of this paper is to examine the government revenue and expenditure relationship in the context of what is known as the soft and hard budget constraint strategy. We adopt a nonlinear framework with structural breaks and focus our empirical analysis in three countries. Two of them...

We analyze the influence of the fiscal position on the transmission of government spending shocks in a New Keynesian model. We find that once we allow for positive levels of government debt in the steady state, the size of the fiscal multiplier depends strongly on the horizon at which the...