We investigate the existence of Granger-causality between current account and government budget balances over the period 1970-2007, for different EU and OECD country groupings. We use the panel-data approach of Kónya (2006), which is based on SUR systems and Wald tests with country specific...

We investigate the existence of Granger-causality between current account and government budget balances over the period 1970-2007, for different EU and OECD country groupings. We use the panel-data approach of Kónya (2006), which is based on SUR systems and Wald tests with country specific...

We investigate the existence of Granger-causality between current account and government budget balances over the period 1970-2007, for different EU and OECD country groupings. We use a panel-data approach based on SUR systems and Wald tests with country specific bootstrap critical values. Our...

Israel’s monetary policy framework is broadly sound. Inflation targeting was introduced in the early 1990s, and low single-digit inflation was established by the end of the decade. However, fast transmission from the exchange rate to inflation means the operational challenges differ somewhat...

In this paper, we analyse the role of political and institutional variables on the cyclical patterns of central government expenditure and revenue. Working with a sample of 38 OECD and Latin-American countries in 1960-2003, we find that higher levels of income inequality are associated with...

We explore how fiscal policies in the OECD have responded to unexpected information about the economy during the period 1995-2006. In particular, we first estimate standard fiscal rules using ex-ante data (i.e. forecasts). We then estimate how fiscal policy reacts to new information, especially...

In this paper we assess to what extent in the existence of a financial crisis, government spending can contribute to mitigate economic downturns in the short run and whether such impact differs in crisis and non crisis times. We use panel analysis for a set of OECD and non-OECD countries for the...

We assess the consequences of fiscal consolidation episodes on public sector efficiency (scores) for 35 OECD countries for the 2007-2020 period. We find that fiscal consolidations improve public sector efficiency and results are robust across efficiency models. Moreover, peripheral euro-area...

Corruption is harmful for public finances and appears closely related to fiscal deficits. We open a new avenue in addressing the effects of corruption on public deficits through fiscal decentralization. For a sample of 31 OECD countries over the period 1986–2010, we find that fiscal...