During the European sovereign debt crisis, most countries that ran into fiscal trouble had Catholic majorities, whereas countries with Protestant majorities were able to avoid fiscal problems. Survey data show that, within Germany, views on the euro differ between Protestants and...

We develop a Keynesian cross analysis with a dynamic optimization setting that explains long-run stagnation caused by aggregate demand deficiency. We show that an increase in government purchases boosts GDP through a multiplier process, but the implication is quite different from the...

The role of fiscal austerity has been questioned for centuries, but a rapidly increasing deficit along with the financial crisis in 2007/2008 influenced a renewed debate on the economics of austerity. This paper analyzes the role of austerity versus the role of economic growth. It also attempts...

Dramatic fiscal developments in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and global recession led researchers to recognize how little we know about fiscal policies and their impacts. This essay argues that fiscal analysis that aims to address pertinent issues and provide useful inputs to...

Dramatic fiscal developments in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and global recession led researchers to recognize how little we know about fiscal policies and their impacts. This essay argues that fiscal analysis that aims to address pertinent issues and provide useful inputs to...

This paper examines the risk factors associated with fiscal costs of systemic banking crises using cross-country data. We differentiate between immediate direct fiscal costs of government intervention (e.g., recapitalization and asset purchases) and overall fiscal costs of banking crises as...

This paper examines domestic policy cooperation, a curiously neglected issue. Both international and domestic cooperation were live issues in the 1970s when the IS/LM model predicted very different external outcomes from monetary and fiscal policies. Interest in domestic policy cooperation has...

Achieving fiscal consolidation without undermining growth and poverty-reduction efforts is a key policy challenge in many countries. Using India as an illustration, this paper shows how a mix of well-designed taxation and spending policies can help address these challenges. On the tax side, the...

The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region DSGE model developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy and scenario analysis. This paper compares two versions of GIMF, GIMF with a conventional financial accelerator, where bank balance sheets do not...