Uncertainty about the future preferences of the government may induce policy makers to run excessive budget deficits. As a solution to this problem, economists have proposed to impose a binding debt rule. In this paper we argue that a binding debt rule does not eliminate the distortions due to...

We quantify the fiscal multipliers in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. We extend the benchmark Smets-Wouters (Smets and Wouters, 2007) New Keynesian model, allowing for credit-constrained households, the zero lower bound, government capital and distortionary...

In this paper we investigate experimentally the functioning of a wage tax financed unemployment benefit system on the development of the budget deficit, unemployment, and some other indicators of economic performance in an international economy. We find support for the hypothesis that...

The impact of EU Cohesion Policy has mainly been evaluated with regard to its growth effects. We extend the perspective by investigating the impact of EU Cohesion Policy on public investments and budget deficits in order to learn more about the channels through which this policy field works....

Using a unique dataset of personal characteristics of national finance ministers in Europe (1980 – 2010), I show that especially a finance minister’s experience affects the development of public debt. Both a finance minister’s experience gained in office and his political experience have...

Interest rates on public debt have for several years now fallen short of GDP growth rates in much of the Western world. In his presidential address to the AEA Blanchard argued that this implies that there are no fiscal costs to high debt (Blanchard, 2019).1 In this paper we argue that the safe...

This paper considers the effects of inaccurate real-time output data on fiscal policy, both with respect to budgetary planning and fiscal surveillance. As newer and better information becomes available, output data available in real time get revised and are likely to conflict with final figures...

We explore the consequences of different financial frictions on the corporate and banking level for macroeconomic policy responsiveness to major policy measures. We show that both corporate and bank debt overhang greatly reduce the effectiveness of fiscal policy: multipliers turn negative with...