We examine the effect of fiscal policy on sovereign risk spreads and investigate whether the interaction of fiscal variables with political institutions affect financial markets. Using panel data from emerging market countries, we find that revenue-based adjustment lowers spreads more than spending-based adjustment. Financial markets also react to the composition of spending. Cuts in current sp...

BACKGROUND Global warming is attracting attention from policy makers due to its impacts such as floods, extreme weather, increases in temperature by 0.7°C, heat waves, storms, etc. These disasters result in loss of human life and billions of dollars in property. Global warming is believed to be caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activities including the emissions of carbon...

We examine global dynamics under infinite-horizon learning in New Keynesian models where the interest-rate rule is subject to the zero lower bound. The intended steady state is locally but not globally stable. Unstable deflationary paths emerge after large pessimistic shocks to expectations. For large expectation shocks that push interest rates to the zero bound, a temporary fiscal stimulus, or...

Although fiscal policies of central governments sometimes provide modest insurance against regional income shocks, this paper shows that procyclical fiscal policy among provincial governments can easily overwhelm these stabilizing effects. We examine the cyclicality of budget items among provincial governments in seven federations, showing that own-source taxes are generally highly procyclical,...

Declaration In accordance with the Regulations for Higher Degrees by Research, I hereby declare that the whole thesis now submitted for the candidature of Doctor of Philosophy is a result of my own research and independent work except where reference is made to published literature. I also hereby certify that the work embodied in this thesis has not already been submitted in any substance for a...

In theory, the IMF could influence fiscal and monetary policy via several channels, among them advice to policy makers, conditionality, and moral hazard it induces with the borrowers. This paper tries to disentangle those effects empirically. Using panel data for 98 countries over the period 1975-2000 it analyzes whether IMF involvement indeed influences fiscal and monetary policy in program co...

The possibility of the so called "non-Keynesian" was illustrated by several fiscal episodes in Europe during the last two decades, giving rise to a growing body of both theoretical and empirical literature. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, a simple two period model for private consumption is presented in order to explain the possibility of both Keynesian and non-Keynesian effects of...

In the initial models of economic growth, economic factors entered in to models but in the following models, non-economic factors entered in to models. Many broad studies were done on this subject by the economists, and already considerable results were obtained. Subjects such as corruption in the administrative bodies were new variables entering the literature of economic growth at that stage....

Alan Auerbach has given us a valuable paper loaded with new empirical research on the macroeconomics of fiscal policy. I agree with his basic conclusion that there is “little evidence that (the effects of discretionary fiscal policy) have provided a significant contribution to economic stabilization, if, in fact, they have worked in the right direction at all.” I, therefore, concur with his sup...