If voters of different countries adhere to different and deeply rooted cultural norms, when these countries interact their leaders may find it impossible to agree on effi cient policies especially in hard times. Political leaders’actions are bound by a “conformity constraint”that requires them to express policies that do not violate these norms. This inhibits politicians from adopting the optim...

In this paper we study macroeconomic stabilization in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) using a dynamic game approach. With the aid of a stylized macroeconomic model, this paper analyzes the transmission and interaction of national fiscal policies and monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the EMU. A special focus is on the effects of labor market institutions in the particip...

The growing concerns about the climate change, the characteristics of the transport sector and its future trend, have made this sector be considered relevant in the policy analysis that promote the low carbon economy. The development of alternative fuel vehicles is one of these policies. However, although the diffusion of clean technologies has been studied for the academy community, and is rec...

This paper analyses Indonesia’s resource mobilisation and public expenditure policies against the backdrop of her inequality trends and macroeconomic policy evolution. It is argued that the country’s fiscal policy stance has been adversely impacted by her monetary and financial sector policies under an open capital account, with attendant regressive distributional implications. Juxtaposing the ...

Fiscal Policy assumes a central place in the overall macroeconomic framework. As government sector and private sector compete for resources and for consumption in the economy, fiscal policy needs to be designed in a framework where an increase in government activity would result in net gains to the economy even when it may negatively impact in private sector activity, or reduce foreign exchange...

Governments use national debt and the budget deficit as measures of fiscal position. But what should government policy aim to achieve with respect to these measures? Are these the right summary measures at which to be looking? This paper considers what the government should use as its fiscal targets to achieve policies that are consistent with long-term fiscal objectives. Among its findings are...

this commentary is a brief response to nir eyal’s argument that health policies should not make healthy behaviour a condition or prerequisite in order to access healthcare as it could result in the people who need healthcare the most not being able to access healthcare. while in general agreement due to the shared concern for equity, i argue that making health behaviour a condition to accessing...