Recent work on financial frictions in New Keynesian models suggest that there is a sizable spread between the risk-less interest rate and the borrowing rate. We analyze the optimal policy mix of monetary and fiscal authorities in a currency union with a country-specific credit spread by...

Within the context of an agent-based macroeconomic model with dynamic bounded-rational expectations, the most important transmission links between the real sphere of the European economy and the US financial markets crises are simulated: (a) the devaluation of financial assets, (b) global...

The endorsement of expansionary fiscal packages has often been based on the idea that large multipliers can contrast rising unemployment. Is that really the case? We explore those issues in a New Keynesian model in which unemployment arises because of matching frictions. We compare fiscal...

We provide a systematic analysis of fiscal consolidation in a dynamic general equilibrium model with a detailed government sector and a share of credit-constrained households. We simulate permanent cuts in government consumption, government investment, and transfer payments as well as permanent...

Joint modelling of fiscal and monetary policies should elucidate on their interaction. We construct an eight-dimensional parsimonious structural vector equilibrium correction model (PSVECM) of the US macro economy over the last five decades. The fiscal deficit is found to be one of the five...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

The paper analyzes the relation between institutional quality, such as corruption, in a country and its monetary regime. It is shown that a credibly fixed exchange rate to a low inflation country, like a currency board, can reduce corruption and improve the fiscal system. A monetary union,...

This paper analyzes the link between inflation and democracy in developing countries. In order to address the endogeneity issue of democracy, I use the date of political independence as an instrument for democratic institutions. The application of the criterion of Stock and Yogo (2002, 2005) for...