Trends over the last 25 years suggest that nearly 80% of the social sector spending has come from state budgets. Taken together with other policy developments in the country, the centre's role in financing social welfare, including elementary education, is likely to decline further. Analysing...

We use a panel of 21 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009 to investigate the effects of different fiscal adjustment strategies on long-term interest rates - a key fiscal indicator reflecting the costs of government debt service. A government confronted with high deficits and rising debt will sooner...

We construct comprehensive public sector balance sheets for Finland for 2000-2016 by complementing general government statistics with data on public corporations and pensions. These static balance sheets show that Finland's public sector net worth at end 2016 was - 160 percent of GDP, after...

Für Jens Bullerjahn, Minister der Finanzen des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, ist es entscheidend, wie die neuen Länder aus der gegenwärtigen Krise herauskommen. Es gehe zunächst darum, die in den letzten 20 Jahren erfolgreich aufgebaute wirtschaftliche Substanz zu sichern, um dann den...

We use a panel of 21 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009 to investigate the effects of different fiscal adjustment strategies on long-term interest rates - a key fiscal indicator reflecting the costs of government debt service. A government confronted with high deficits and rising debt will sooner...

The financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession created unprecedented federal budget deficits in recent years. In fact, these events, combined with subsequent slow growth and two continuing unfunded wars, have resulted in a national debt that is out of control by all meaningful measures....

Austerity is a concept that is often used in the public debate. It refers to fiscal policy measures that reduce government spending and raise taxes for the purposes of closing a government budget deficit. This paper analyzes the concept in the context of the current European economic crisis and...

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Japan experienced a period of rapid economic growth comparable to that of many other Asian countries today, government fiscal policy was largely facilitated by the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program ("FILP"). This paper examines whether it would be...

Based on a permanent income analysis, Gagnon (2018) has prominently suggested that Norwayhas saved too much, thereby free-riding on the rest of the world for demand. Our public sectorbalance sheet analysis comes to the opposite conclusion, chiefly because it also accounts forfuture aging costs....