Euro-area governance: what to reform and how to do it. Bruegel Policy Brief 2015/01 February 2015

The Issue Reform of the governance of the euro area is being held back by disagreement on what is at the root of the euro area’s woes. Pre-crisis, the euro area suffered from the built-up of financial imbalances, price and wage divergence and an insufficient focus on debt sustainability. During the crisis, the main problems were slow resolution of banking problems, an inadequate fiscal policy stance in 2011-13 for the area as a whole, insufficient domestic demand in surplus countries and slow progress with structural reforms to overcome past divergences. Policy Challenge Euro-area governance needs to move beyond the improvements brought about by banking union and should establish institutions to prevent divergences of wages from productivity. We propose the creation of a European Competitiveness Council composed of national competitiveness councils, and the creation of a Eurosystem of Fiscal Policy (EFP) with two goals: fiscal debt sustainability and an adequate area-wide fiscal position. The EFP should have the right in exceptional circumstances to declare national deficits unlawful and to be able to force parliaments to borrow more so that the euro-area fiscal stance is appropriate. A euro-area chamber of the European Parliament would have to approve such decisions. No additional risk-sharing would be introduced. In the short term, domestic demand needs to be increased in surplus countries, while in deficit countries, structural reform needs to reduce past divergences.

The financial stability risks of ultra-loose monetary policy. Bruegel Policy Contribution Issue 2015/03

Ultra-loose monetary policies, such as very low or even negative interest rates, large-scale asset purchases, long-maturity lending to banks and forward guidance in central bank communication, aim to increase inflation and output, to the benefit of financial stability. But at the same time, these measures pose various risks and might create challenges for financial institutions. • By assessing the theoretical literature and developments in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, where very expansionary monetary policies were adopted during the past six years, and by examining the euro-area situation, we conclude that the risks to financial stability of ultra-loose monetary policy in the euro area could be low. However, vigilance is needed. • While monetary policy should focus on its primary mandate of area-wide price stability, other policies should be deployed whenever the financial cycle deviates from the economic cycle or when heterogeneous financial developments in the euro area require financial tightening in some but not all countries. These policies include micro-prudential supervision, macro-prudential oversight, fiscal policy and regulation of sectors that pose risks to financial stability, such as construction.

Comparing fiscal multipliers across models and countries in Europe. National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 278, March 2015

This paper employs fifteen dynamic macroeconomic models maintained within the European System of Central Banks to assess the size of fiscal multipliers in European countries. Using a set of common simulations, we consider transitory and permanent shocks to government expenditures and different taxes. We investigate how the baseline multipliers change when monetary policy is transitorily constrained by the zero nominal interest rate bound, certain crisis-related structural features of the economy such as the share of liquidity-constrained households change, and the endogenous fiscal rule that ensures fiscal sustainability in the long run is specified in terms of labour income taxes instead of lump-sum taxes.

The Political Economy of Financial Crisis Policy. Bruegel Working Paper 2015/06, July 2015

Highlights • Government intervention to stabilise financial systems in times of banking crises ultimately involves political decisions. This paper sheds light on how certain political variables influence policy choices during banking crises and hence have an impact on fiscal outlays. • We employ cross-country econometric evidence from all crisis episodes in the period 1970-2011 to examine the impact political and party systems have on the fiscal cost of financial sector intervention. • Governments in presidential systems are associated with lower fiscal costs of crisis management because they are less likely to use costly bank guarantees, thus reducing the exposure of the state to significant contingent and direct fiscal liabilities. Consistent with these findings we find further evidence that these governments are less likely to use bank recapitalisation and more likely to impose losses on depositors.

spotlight europe #2015/04—October 2015: A Fiscal Union for Europe – Building Block and Not a Magic Bullet

The dramatic negotiations with Greece in the past few months have been a telling reminder of the weaknesses of the euro area. Most of the commentators are of the opinion that if the monetary union is going to be crisis-resistant and stable in the long term, certain very important elements will have to be changed. However, there is little or no agreement when it comes to specifying the "what" and the "how". In particular there are heated debates about the right steps to further integration in the area of fiscal policy. "Fiscal union can create stability only if it includes both credible budgetary rules and some kind of risk sharing", argue Katharina Gnath and Jörg Haas in the latest spotlight europe. However, "whilst it is an important and effective way of stabilizing the euro area, it should not exclude the use of other instruments."

Efeitos dos choques de políticas monetária e fiscal sobre as expectativas de inflação no Brasil

In the past few years, uncertainty regarding fiscal situation in Brazil has raised concerns about Central Bank’s ability to anchor inflation expectations. This work examines the impact of monetary and fiscal policy shocks in inflation expectations in Brazil from 2003 to 2015, using VAR models. The results show that unexpected increases in the overnight interest rate lower 12 and 24-months-ahead inflation expectations. However when we reestimate the model using only the late sample (2010-2015), the effects of monetary shocks in inflation expectations are not statistically significant. On the other hand, negative shocks in primary balance expectations have a positive and stronger effect on inflation expectations for recent years. These results suggest that the deanchoring of inflation expectations in Brazil over the past five years is no longer a monetary phenomenon but a fiscal phenomenon.

Effects of fiscal consolidations in Latin America

We use new data on cyclically adjusted primary balances for Latin America and the Caribbean to estimate e ects of scal consolidations on GDP and some of its components. Identi cation is conducted through a doubly-robust estimation procedure that controls for non-randomness in the "treatment assignment" by inverse probability weighting and impulse responses are generated by local projections. Results suggest output contraction by more than one percent on impact, with economy starting to recover from the second year on. Composition e ects indicate that revenue-based adjustments are way more contractionary than expenditure-based ones. Disentangling efects between demand components, we nd consumption being in general less responsive to consolidations than investment, although nonlinearities associated to initial levels of debt and taxation might play an important role.

Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 : report of the Committee on the Budget, House of Representatives to accompany H.R. 4241, a bill to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 201(a) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006 together with minority, additional and dissenting views.

"November 7, 2005."

Concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006 : conference report (to accompany H. Con. Res. 95).

"August 28, 2005."

Reducing the federal budget : strategies and examples, fiscal years 1982-1986 /

Mode of access: Internet.

Economic policy and full employment,

"Companion volume to ... [the author's] Fiscal policy and business cycles."-Pref.

Política fiscal y ciclo en América Latina: el rol de los gobiernos subnacionales

El presente trabajo analiza el rol de los gobiernos subnacionales (GSNs) en la política fiscal de los países más descentralizados de América Latina durante la última década. Esta extensión del análisis al nivel subnacional resulta de gran importancia, teniendo en cuenta que crecientemente gobiernos intermedios y locales son responsables de una parte significativa de las finanzas públicas en la región. En particular, después de revisar la evolución de las finanzas subnacionales a lo largo de los últimos diez años, el trabajo analiza el carácter cíclico de las cuentas públicas y si el comportamiento fiscal se puede caracterizar como pro o contracíclico y las causas de esto. Para ello, se analizan tanto la postura macro y la sostenibilidad de la política fiscal subnacional así como también la evolución de la composición de ingresos y gastos en los diferentes países. El análisis sugiere que, en promedio, las finanzas subnacionales han sido pro-cíclicas durante el periodo, a pesar del hecho que los impulsos fiscales subnacionales han sido relativamente pequeños, en comparación con los de los presupuestos de los gobiernos centrales.

Política fiscal ambiental en el Ecuador: avances y desafíos

En las últimas décadas se observa un creciente deterioro del medio ambiente y una intensificación de los fenómenos climáticos asociados al cambio climático. Es posible, desde el ámbito económico, entender a este deterioro ambiental y el problema del cambio climático como la consecuencia lógica de diversas externalidades negativas (Stern, 2007). En este contexto, la política fiscal es un instrumento fundamental para reducir o eliminar las externalidades negativas asociadas al medio ambiente y al mismo tiempo fomentar el crecimiento económico, el empleo y en general el bienestar de la población. En América Latina existen pocas experiencias, la mayor parte recientes, de uso de la política fiscal ambiental para enfrentar los problemas ambientales, como la contaminación atmosférica, el cambio climático, entre otros. En este contexto, el objetivo del presente documento es sistematizar las iniciativas ejecutadas por el Gobierno de Ecuador en materia de fiscalidad e iniciativas ambientales, analizando los avances logrados en los últimos años así como los desafíos y recomendaciones para avanzar hacia un desarrollo más sustentable.

Descentralización fiscal y crecimiento económico en Colombia: evidencia de datos de panel a nivel regional

En este trabajo se ofrece evidencia de los efectos positivos de la descentralización fiscal en el crecimiento económico regional en Colombia desde la promulgación de la Constitución Política de 1991. La estrategia empírica incluyó la elección de un estimador adecuado para el enfoque de panel de datos, el estimador “promedio del grupo aumentado” (amg, por sus siglas en inglés), que permitió agregar factores determinantes no observados, sugeridos por la literatura, a los factores explicativos de largo plazo tradicionales. La estrategia se complementó con ejercicios que brindaron apoyo a los resultados de i) modelos de corte transversal para diferentes períodos y diversas variables de control, ii) una prueba de la hipótesis de complementariedad entre los bienes públicos suministrados por diferentes jurisdicciones (efectos indirectos), y iii) una evaluación de la convergencia incondicional en las diferencias de ingreso regionales.

Health investment, saving, and public policy

This paper develops an overlapping-generations model in which agents invest in health to prolong life in both working and retirement periods. It explores how unfunded social security with or without health subsidies affects life expectancy, economic growth, and welfare. In particular, by extending life at a possible cost of capital accumulation, health subsidies and a pay-as-you-go pension can improve welfare, especially in the short run.