In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and great recession, many countries face substantial deficits and growing debts. In the United States, federal government outlays as a ratio to GDP rose substantially from about 19.5 percent before the crisis to over 24 percent after the crisis. In...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the state of macroeconomicmodeling and the use of macroeconomic models in policy analysis has come under heavy criticism. Macroeconomists in academia and policy institutions have been blamed for relying too much on a particular class of...

Recently, we evaluated a fiscal consolidation strategy for the United States that would bring the government budget into balance by gradually reducing government spending relative to GDP to the ratio that prevailed prior to the crisis (Cogan et al, JEDC 2013). Specifically, we published an...

This paper investigates the accuracy of point and density forecasts of four DSGE models for inflation, output growth and the federal funds rate. Model parameters are estimated and forecasts are derived successively from historical U.S. data vintages synchronized with the Fed’s Greenbook...

We examine both the degree and the structural stability of inflation persis tence at different quantiles of the conditional inflation distribution. Previous research focused exclusively on persistence at the conditional mean of the inflation rate. Economic theory, however, provides various...

The paper illustrates based on an example the importance of consistency between the empirical measurement and the concept of variables in estimated macroeconomic models. Since standard New Keynesian models do not account for demographic trends and sectoral shifts, the authors proposes adjusting...

Hours per capita measures based on the private sector as usually included in the set of observables for estimating macroeconomic models are affected by low-frequent demographic trends and sectoral shifts that cannot be explained by standard models. Further, model-based output gap estimates are...

Deutschland hat bei der Digitalisierung öffentlicher Verwaltungsprozesse große Defizite. Die föderale Struktur Deutschlands sowie stark regelgebundene Verwaltungsprozesse können das Digitalisierungsdefizit in der öffentlichen Verwaltung nur ansatzweise erklären. Der Kronberger Kreis...

This paper assesses the possible development of government interest expenditures as a share of GDP for Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Until 2021, these and other member states could anticipate a further reduction of interest expenditure in the future. This outlook has changed considerably...