Most countries have automatic rules in their tax‐and‐transfer systems that are partly
intended to stabilize economic fluctuations. This paper measures their effect on the …

This retrospective argues that old criticisms of the Stability and Growth Pact survive intact,
but emphasizes two further features. First, the Pact imposes constraints on national fiscal …

This paper evaluates the Stability and Growth Pact. After briefly examining the rules in place
and the experience so far, the Pact is analysed from a political economy perspective …

The book has many merits, and represents an important contribution to the controversial
topic of European fiscal policy. I appreciated in particular the high quality and rigor of the …

Abstract The Lisbon Strategy supports reform of Member States' tax‐benefit systems while
the 'fiscal philosophy'of the EMU postulates that governments should allow only automatic …

The global financial and economic crisis has revived the debate in the academic literature
and in policy circles about the size and effectiveness of automatic fiscal stabilisers …

In recent years the euro area has shown less resilience to the negative and largely OECD-
wide common shocks than the English-speaking countries, but most of the smaller euro area …

As actual budget balances reflect both cyclical developments and discretionary measures,
they are not very useful when seeking to assess the orientation of underlying fiscal policy …

Cyclically induced changes in taxes and government expenditures which tend to stabilise
aggregate output are called automatic stabilisers. Using a small macro model, this paper …

This paper develops a new methodology for estimating both the automatic and discretionary
components of fiscal policy in one reaction function using the differences between real-time …