The paper presents empirical findings regarding the economic policy consequences of constitutional arrangements, in three different dimensions. First, the data are consistent with several theoretical predictions about the consequences of electoral rules and forms of government for fiscal policy...

The paper presents empirical findings regarding the economic policy consequences of constitutional arrangements, in three different dimensions. First, the data are consistent with several theoretical predictions about the consequences of electoral rules and forms of government for fiscal policy...

We analyse the poisonous interaction between bank rescues, financial fragility and sovereign debt discounts. In our model balance sheet constrained financial intermediaries finance both capital expenditure of intermediate goods producers and government deficits. The financial intermediaries face...

We investigate the effectiveness of "Keynesian" fiscal stimuli when government deficits and debt rollovers are (possibly partially) financed by balance sheet constrained financial intermediaries. Because financial intermediaries operate under a leverage constraint, deficit financing of fiscal...

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between austerity measures and economic growth. We propose a general equilibrium model where (i) agents have recursive preferences; (ii ) economic growth is endogenously driven by investments in R&D; (iii) the government is...

We study fiscal policy in Denmark in the period 2004-2012 and compare the actual policy to counterfactual, rule-based alternatives. Given Denmark's fixed exchange rate towards the euro, it is the job of fiscal policymakers to stabilise fluctuations in output and inflation. However, we find that...