The paper analyses the linkages from financial developments to public finances. It maps and discusses the transmission channels to fiscal variables. These channels include asset prices, financing conditions, balance sheets of banks, non-banks and central banks and international linkages. The...

Based on the observation of an unabated trend towards higher social spending ratios in advanced countries, the study analyzes the risk of "social dominance", where social expenditures dominate fiscal policy, and undermine growth and fiscal sustainability. We scrutinize this risk by analyzing...

This paper discusses activist fiscal policies during good times, the crisis period and for the post-crisis period. The study argues, first, that fiscal policies were overly imprudent during the boom phase preceding the crisis. This was due to excessive expenditure growth and problems with...

In a standard linear structural VAR framework we analyse the size and sign of fiscal multipliers in the euro area, using a newly available quarterly dataset of fiscal variables for the period 1981-2007. From a policy perspective, the analysis of fiscal multipliers in “average times” provides...