Fiscal consolidation will go too far if it pushes the economy towards a ?bad equilibrium? with high and growing fiscal deficits and debt, high risk premia on sovereign debt, slumping economic activity and plummeting confidence. In this paper we examine the possible conditions under which fiscal...

We specify an open-economy version of a two-region New Keynesian model for EMU and demonstrate that the result on the unsustainability of the euro with ever-mounting inflation differentials by Wickens (2007) does not hold in general. Strong fiscal consolidation and far-reaching successful...

The European Redemption Pact (ERP), a proposal of the German Council of Economic Experts, describes an exit strategy from the debt crisis which currently plagues the euro area. The pact includes a binding commitment of all participating countries to bring public debt ratios below the reference...

The deepening of the debt crisis in the euro area is due to three systemic causes which national governments are not able to overcome on their own. First, being members of a monetary union euro states cannot dampen or even reverse the rise in public debt through devaluations. At the same time,...

Many observers consider the German ?debt brake? beyond criticism. In the current crisis, many European countries have difficulties refinancing their budgets, while the German Treasury?s funding conditions are most favourable. The ?fiscal compact?s? call for the introduction of German-style ?debt...

The euro zone crisis illustrates the insufficiency of adjustment mechanisms in a monetaryunion characterized by a large heterogeneity. Firstly, the paper gives an evaluationof exchange rate misalignments inside the euro zone, using a FEER approach(Jeong et ali., 2010). Usingpanel econometric...

In response to the severe disruption of the financial system, the agenda defined by the Group of Twenty (G20), in 2008, has led to a new regulatory framework. These ongoing reforms outline a new organization, which could be called the Global and Integrated Prudential Model. Such a model is based...

This paper considers how a range of economies are adjusting to the external imbalances that they faced at the beginning of the current crisis. It also considers how the real economy may adjust when recovery eventually takes hold. Finally it considers how the adjustments under way will contribute...

In spite of completely pegged parities inside the euro area, real effective exchange rates have continued to evolve differently across member countries due to inflation discrepancies. In this paper, we assess real exchange rate misalignments for the euro area countries over the period 1980-2010...

The public finances crisis has brought binding fiscal rules proposals back to the forefront. The paper analyses their justifications and specifications, either in a classical or in a Keynesian framework. In the recent period there is no evidence that public deficits were caused by fiscal...