We develop a simple two-period principal-agent model in which a present-biased government, the agent, chooses public investment levels given a deficit rule imposed by the principal. The principal sets a deficit cap to curb current debt-financed consumption. In doing so, it also reduces long-term...

We study the social and distributional implications of the euro area (EA) sovereign debt crisis in countries that received external financial assistance for macroeconomic adjustments. Combining granular data from about one million survey interviews with households across euro area states carried...

Through fiscal reaction functions, we investigate fiscal sustainability for five European country-group panels and check for a change in fiscal behaviour after countries adopted the euro as their currency. Using annual data for the period between 1990 and 2021, we identify evidence of average...