We analyze motivations for, and possible alternatives to, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). With regard to the former, we identify domestic policy failures and various cross-country spillover effects; with regard to the latter, we contrast an “economic-theory" perspective on optimal...

This paper evaluates the Stability and Growth Pact. After examining the rules in place and the experience so far, the Pact is analysed from a political economy perspective, focusing on the choice for so-called soft law and drawing inferences from characteristics of successful fiscal rules at the...

The European Union (EU) accepted ten new member states (NMS) in 2004. These countries, mostly former socialist countries, have had to adjust their economic policies to the EU’s standards. Perhaps most difficult has proven to be fiscal policy whereby NMS must comply with the Stability and...

This paper examines whether there is a political budget cycle (PBC) in countries in the euro area. Using a multivariate model for the period 1999-2004 and various election indicators we find strong evidence that the Stability and Growth Pact has not restricted fiscal policy makers in the euro...

In this paper, we track fiscal authority behaviour in the ten new EU member states (NSM) in the period which immediately preceded their EU accession. We first present basic stylized facts about public budgets of those countries. The paper then analyses reasons which led to periods of fiscal...

The paper builds a simplified model describing the economy of a currency union with decentralised national fiscal policy, where the main features characterising the policy-making are similar to those in EMU. National governments choose the size of deficit taking into account the two main rules...

We develop a general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition with a traded and a non-traded sector. Using a broad class of homothetic preferences—that generate variable markups, display a simple behavior of their elasticity of substitution, and nest the ces as a limiting case—we show...

We analyze input-output matrices for a wide set of countries as weighted directed networks. These graphs contain only 47 nodes, but they are almost fully connected and many have nodes with strong self-loops. We apply two measures: random walk centrality and one based on count-betweenness. Our...

Recent research in international economics highlights the role of interdependencies of investment decisions and sales of multinational firms. Previous work focused on and provided evidence for aggregate flows or stocks of foreign direct investment, showing that interdependence declines in...

This paper calls into question the currently most influential model of international trade. An empirical finding by Trefler (2004, AER) and others that industrial productivity increases more strongly in liberalized industries than in non-liberalized industries has been widely accepted as...