This paper assesses the contribution of the European Central Bank (ECB) to Germany's ongoing economic crisis, a vicious circle of decline in which the country has become stuck since the early 1990s. It is argued that the ECB continues the Bundesbank tradition of asymmetric policymaking: the bank...

This paper assesses the contribution of the European Central Bank (ECB) to Germany's ongoing economic crisis, a vicious circle of decline in which the country has become stuck since the early 1990s. It is argued that the ECB continues the Bundesbank tradition of asymmetric policymaking: the bank...

In this article, after a brief sketch of the fiscal strategy of the German Government and the current budgetary situation, it is first argued that the current budget dispute could have been avoided because the coalition essentially created the dispute through two fiscal (mid)decisions last year....

The paper deals with the current budget crisis in Germany, which was triggered by an attempt to increase public debt beyond the limits of the German constitution. The rejection of the Supplementary Budget 2021 of the federal government by the Constitutional Court in November 2023 requires a...

We estimate the political economy determinants of budget deficit forecast errors. Since the adoption of the Stability Pact, Eurozone governments have manipulated forecasts before elections. The political orientation and the institutional design of governments also affects the quality of forecasts.

This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and,...

Cyclically induced changes in taxes and government expenditures which tend to stabilise aggregate output are called automatic stabilisers. Using a small macro model, this paper reviews alternative methods of measuring the smoothing power of automatic stabilisers and discusses their relationship...

This study analyses whether expected budget deficits have an impact on interest rate swap spreads in France, Germany and Italy. We use monthly deficit forecasts from financial market participants to take the forward-looking behaviour of financial markets into account. Results of a SUR estimation...

We estimate the political economy determinants of budget deficit forecast errors. Since the adoption of the Stability Pact, Eurozone governments have manipulated forecasts before elections. The political orientation and the institutional design of governments also affects the quality of forecasts.

On the basis of an empirical application for Germany, we compare two methods for measuring fiscal sustainability, the Generational Accounting approach and the OECD-Method. We show that both methods can be transferred into each other. Therefore the indicators belonging to one method can be used...