In the past 25 years, many OECD countries have implemented fiscal contractions to strengthen their public finances. The macroeconomic outcomes of these efforts have <p> varied. With the aid of an econometric model, this paper seeks to identify the factors <p> that make contractions successful from a...</p></p>

In this paper, we discuss a new method for constructing a cyclically adjusted budget balance. We use the method to evaluate the budget balance for Sweden during the period 1991–2005. Traditionally, methods for cyclical adjustment have focused on the output gap. In this paper we also adjust for...