This paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy shocks under different exchange rate regimes within a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model. We first suggest that by estimating the effects of fiscal policy shocks in two structurally similar small open economies that have...

In this paper we analyse to what extent the Nordic economies are vulnerable to external shocks. Specifically, we assess the conventional wisdom that the Nordic countries are small open economies that are significantly engaged in international trade, specialised in only few specific industries...

This paper studies real-time measures of the output gap and fiscal policy stance estimates for EU countries. We construct a comprehensive real-time data set on fiscal forecasts and study whether there are systematic differences between the European Commission and IMF estimates of the output gap...

This paper provides a characterization of the fiscal policy framework in four established federal countries with heterogeneous intergovernmental relations and demographic characteristics: Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the United States. We consider the implications of fiscal federalism from...

A prominent hypothesis suggests that violent uprisings against the ruling elites have played an important role in shaping the distribution of power and prosperity. This paper employs newly-collected historical data from Finland to evaluate this hypothesis. We document that the country had...

We examine pricing in markets where products may be of heterogeneous quality and buyers have heterogeneous preferences. The sellers cannot credibly communicate the quality they offer, and consequently price acts as a signal of quality. We determine the equilibria of the model both when the...