The sustainability of fiscal deficits has been receiving increasing attention. The issue is paramount for the newly formed euro area, and that is one of the motivations of this paper. In order to assess the sustainability of budget deficits, cointegration tests between public expenditures and...

Generational policy is a fundamental aspect of a nation's fiscal affairs. The policy involves redistributing resources across generations and allocating to particular generations the burden of paying the government's bills. This chapter in Volume 4 of the Handbook of Public Economics shows how...

This paper uses cointegration techniques to assess the extent to which the behaviour of private- and public-sector savings and investment and those of the nation as a whole have been consistent with long-term solvency over the last three decades. In addition, an attempt is made to analyse...