The literature on systematic fiscal policy and macroeconomic performance in industrialized countries is large but fragmented. Based on a broad overview of that literature, several patterns emerge. First, the empirical literature points toward strongly anticyclical policy, which consists of...

Recent calculations have suggested that the German federal government has saved roughly EUR 90-100 billion, cumulatively, due to low bond yields since the onset of the Euro crisis. In order to determine the contribution of the "flight to quality" to this sum, we define the flight to quality as a...

We project the path of the public debt and primary surpluses for a number of countries in the euro area under a fiscal rule based on a set of estimated fiscal policy reaction functions. Our fiscal rule represents a fiscal analogue to a well-known monetary policy rule, and it is calibrated using...

We formulate and estimate a simple fiscal policy reaction function for the euro area and individual euro area countries. Our reaction function allows for primary surpluses to feature three components: an anti-cyclical response of primary surpluses to the output gap, a response to the debt-GDP...

The construction bust which accompanied the Great Recession, and the accompanying need to shift workers across sectors, have provoked a discussion about mismatch and the Beveridge Curve, alongside a discussion about firm-level dispersion. These discussions echo an ongoing discussion about the...

The literature on systematic fiscal policy and macroeconomic performance in industrialized countries is large but fragmented. Based on a broad overview of that literature, several patterns emerge. The empirical literature points toward strongly anticyclical policy, which consists of procyclical...