The purpose of this note is to compare the characteristics of the actual Stability and Growth Pact with that of a European "modified golden rule." The latter would consist in achieving in each EU country a cyclically-adjusted net-of-public-investment balance. The benchmark for comparison is the...

From a retrospective perspective, effective future fiscal cooperation in Europe is not likely to stand a chance. Focusing on the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP, the Pact), this paper studies the determinants of national policymakers' changing commitment to a multilateral fiscal rule, referred to...

The continued debate on even the softened Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) highlights that the question of public debt in the European Monetary Union (EMU) needs further scrutiny. Both political economy models for emerging market sovereign debt and exchange rate regimes, as well as models on...