The great depression of 1929 and the great financial crisis of 2008 have been the two big events of the last 75 years. Not only have they produced serious economic consequences but they also changed our view of economics and policymaking. The aim of this work is to compare these two great crises...

This paper investigates the size of Italian fiscal multipliers under different business-cycle phases over the period 1872–2006. Using pre-WWII public defense expenditures as an instrument of total expenditures, we quantify the magnitude of the fiscal multiplier. Controlling for the business...

This paper makes three points. The first is that external imbalances between Member States are relevant for the performance of a monetary union when the latter is not backed by a strong political commitment and a solid political framework. Eurozone policymakers have ignored these inter-member...