Optimal Fiscal Action in an Economy with Sovereign Premia and without Monetary Independence: An Application to Italy

We welfare rank various tax-spending policies. The setup is a New Keynesian model of a semi-small open economy featuring sovereign risk premia and loss of monetary policy independence. The model is calibrated to match data from the Italian economy 2001-2011. We compute various optimized state-contingent tax-spending policy rules when the policy aim is shock stabilization and/or debt consolidation.