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...

Many economic studies analyse the impact of fiscal rules and discuss their effectiveness in limiting excessive debt. A majority of these studies, however, neglects or only deals insufficiently with the potential issue of endogeneity. In this paper, we propose a novel identification approach...

The principles of budgetary completeness and transparency are indispensable elements of fiscal surveillance in the European Union. Within this context, this study deals with the leading question to which extent budgetary policy in the ten new EU member states (NMS) can be regarded as transparent...