Long shunned as slow and ill timed, the response to the Covid-19 pandemic initiated a reassessment of fiscal policy as stabilisation tool. At the same time, there is ample evidence that major economic downturns produce lasting effects on real GDP in spite of active fiscal policy interventions....

EU fiscal rules are meant to keep public finances on a sustainable path. This paper presents a new database that tracks numerical compliance with the four main rules of the Stability and Growth Pact starting in 1998. Our assessment of numerical compliance abstracts from the many exceptions and...

To ensure a smooth functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union, the Stability and Growth Pact defines limits on national fiscal policies and encompasses the possibility to impose sanctions. This short piece explores the much under-examined issue of enforcement of the EU fiscal rules. In the...

In dem vorliegenden Modell wurden die Erkenntnisse der Portfoliotheorie sowie deren ökonometrischer Umsetzung genutzt, um Prognosen für die Struktur der Renditen von verschiedenen Finanzanlagen zu erstellen. Hierbei wurde auf die Annahme, das Angebot der Anlagen sei perfekt elastisch,...

The recent financial crisis has been characterized by unprecedented monetary policy interventions of central banks with the intention to stabilize financial markets and the real economy. This paper sheds light on the actual impact of monetary policy on stock liquidity and thereby addresses its...

Fiscal policymakers are expected to conduct countercyclical policies to mitigate cyclical fluctuations of output, but the assessment of cyclical conditions in real time is subject to considerable uncertainty. They face two types of risk: (i) launching discretionary measures to support or dampen...

The growing inequality of market income has attracted considerable attention; less so the redistribution of income. This article analyses key trends and drivers of income redistribution in the EU and the world. It shows that in the EU increasing redistribution has largely stabilised the...

Rather than stabilising aggregate demand, discretionary fiscal policy tends to amplify cyclical fluctuations of output. The commonly accepted reasons are political economy and uncertainty. In the EU, the pro-cyclical nature of discretionary fiscal policy has also been associated with the...

Rather than stabilising aggregate demand, discretionary fiscal policy tends to amplify cyclical fluctuations of output. The commonly accepted reasons are political economy and uncertainty. In the EU, the pro-cyclical nature of discretionary fiscal policy has also been associated with the...