Are the characteristics of the exchange rate regime relevant for the degree of fiscal discipline? What are the conclusions for fiscal behavior in Europe after the transition to EMU? These are the central questions that are analyzed in this paper from a theoretical point of view. After a general...

EMU driven interest rate convergence has led to a significant reduction of borrowing costs for some European governments in the second half of the nineties. The paper deals with the possible consequences for deficit behaviour. Although the impact of interest rates on deficits is a crucial...

Within the economic profession, it is a widely held view that the fiscal criteria of the Maastricht treaty are arbitrary numbers without economic foundation. Much of this criticism seems to overlook an important aspect - the strategic dimension of the criteria. This paper focuses on one...

We implement a meta-regression-analysis for the budgetary impact of numerical fiscal rules. Based on 30 studies published in the last decade, we offer a consensus estimate with respect to the level of statistical significance, provide suggestive evidence for the effect size, and identify study...

The existing theoretical literature on fiscal competition has to a large extent ignored the role of government debt as a determinant of taxes and productive public spending. We develop a simple model of fiscal competition with government borrowing. If a default on government debt is no option,...