 Sustainability of EU public financesFernando C. Ballabriga and Carlos Martinez-Mongay No 225, European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 from Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission Abstract: We use a policy rule framework and focus on the response of the primary surplus to accumulated public debt to test a sufficient condition for sustainability. The evidence we report suggests that sustainability was prevalent in many EU countries before Maastricht, but also that the Maastricht impulse induced the shift towards sustainability in some of them. Additionally, although a clear distinction emerges in terms of the visibility of the Maastricht stress between the euro bloc, on the one hand, and the non-euro EU countries, the US and Japan, on the other, there is no evidence of bloc differences in terms of the long term soundness of public finances. On the basis of our analysis and results, we highlight the potential policy relevance of the reaction of the primary surplus to accumulated debt in the debate on the proper balance between fiscal stabilization and discipline in EMU. Keywords: Stability and Growth Pact; public debt; sustainability; Maastricht; fiscal stabilization; accumulated debt; public finances; sustainability; Ballabriga; Martinez-Mongay (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:euf:ecopap:0225 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 from Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission Contact information at EDIRC. |
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