The paper compares fiscal cyclicality across regions and countries from 1960 to 2016. It finds that more than half of 170 countries analyzed in seven regions had, in more recent years, limited fiscal space, and that their fiscal policy was either cyclical or procyclical. This was particularly...

This paper investigates the impact of credit rating changes on the sovereign spreads in the European Union and investigates the macro and financial factors that account for the time varying effects of a given credit rating change. We find that changes of ratings are informative, economically...

This paper investigates the impact of credit rating changes on the sovereign spreads in the European Union and investigates the macro and financial factors that account for the time varying effects of a given credit rating change. We find that changes of ratings are informative, economically...

This paper takes stock of the lessons from past crises and the history of other unions to prioritize possible reforms of the euro. The distortions facing the euro include structural challenges in the labor and product markets, and financial distortions. While both structural and financial...

The poor state of public finances in many countries has led to calls for fiscal consolidation. In practice, implementing concrete consolidation measures appears to meet with public resistance, suggesting that the success of consolidation efforts strongly depends on the popularity of the chosen...

We develop a dynamic stochastic full equilibrium New Keynesian model of two open economies based on stochastic differential equations to analyse the interdependence between monetary policy and financial markets in the context of the recent financial crisis. The effect of bubbles on stock and...