This paper examines the information-related problems associated with the analysis of fiscal policies, an issue recently analyzed in connection with monetary policies but largely ignored in the literature on budgetary actions. The results indicate that reliance on the information actually...

In this paper we assess the impact of unexpected shocks to real interest rates and GDP on government budgets for nine European Union countries. Shocks are estimated as onestep-ahead forecast errors arising from a recursive bivariate VAR model. To assess the impact on the budgets we use available...

This paper studies the effects of fiscal policy on private GDP, inflation and the long-term interest rate in Italy using a structural vector autoregression model. To this end, a database of quarterly cash data for selected fiscal variables for the period 1982:1-2004:4 is constructed, largely...

We examine the impact of four factors on the fiscal policies of the euro-area countries over the last two decades: the state of public finances, the European fiscal rules, cyclical conditions and general elections. We rely on information actually available to policy-makers at the time of...

Whether discretionary fiscal policies in industrialized countries act counter- or pro-cyclically and whether their reaction is symmetric or asymmetric over the cycle are still largely unsettled questions. This uncertainty remains even when attention is restricted to euro-area countries, where...

The use of macro stress tests to assess bank solvency has developed rapidly over the past few years. This development was reinforced by the financial crisis, which resulted in substantial losses for banks and created general uncertainty about the banking sector's loss-bearing capacity. Macro...

On the basis of historical data aggregated over the period 1973 to 2000, we estimated four different equilibrium exchange rate models for the synthetic euro. Using the same data set, variable definitions and sample period offers the possibility to assess the uncertainty surrounding such...

This paper examines the information-related problems associated with the analysis of fiscal policies, an issue recently studied in connection with monetary policies but largely ignored in the literature on budgetary action. We estimate a fiscal policy rule for the EU and OECD countries using...

In this paper, we present a disaggregated framework for the analysis of past and projected structural developments in the most relevant revenue and expenditure categories and the fiscal balance. The framework, in particular, distinguishes between the effects of discretionary fiscal policy and of...