What are the cyclical properties of U.S. state and local government fiscal policy? The budget surplus of local and, in particular, state governments is procyclical, smoothing disposable income and consumption of state residents. This happens over both short- and medium-term horizons. Procyclical...

We remove the aggregate US-wide component in US state level disposable income and consumption and find that state-specific consumption exhibits substantially less excess sensitivity to lagged state-specific disposable income than if the aggregate component is not controlled for. This is evidence...

We investigate channels of federally provided income insurance for U.S. States, finding that a major part of federal insurance is provided through transfers. We compare the "bang for the buck" of various fiscal institutions, finding that unemployment benefits are dramatically more efficient in...

We measure the amount of smoothing achieved through various components of the government deficit in Eu and OECD countries. For EU countries, at the 1-year frequency, 13 % of shocks to GDP are smoothed via government consumption, 18 percent via transfers, 5 % via subsidies, while taxes provide no...

This paper builts on earlier evidence showing that, while most countries exhibit little evidence of unconditional income convergence, countries that trade heavily with another tend to exhibit a muchhigher incidence of convergence.