France is fully committed to a fiscal consolidation effort that returns it to a balanced budget by 2017.

Now is the moment to launch an analogous effort to reform and rationalize the political process that produces fiscal policy.

But if there is no serious effort at fiscal consolidation, serious trouble lies ahead, both for the US and for the world economy.

France is fully committed to a fiscal consolidation effort that returns it to a balanced budget by 2017. This is not just a political commitment we have enshrined France s fiscal path in a law adopted in November.

Indeed, just a year or two ago, expansionary fiscal contraction was all the rage, and a massive research effort went into proving its existence.

Both sides will have to make an effort Creditors must accept some risk, and debtors must enhance their creditworthiness through structural fiscal adjustment and reforms that improve their growth prospects.

Indeed, just as a national fiscal stimulus is less efficient than a coordinated effort, strengthening financial regulations without combating the laxity that prevails elsewhere makes no sense in a globalized world.

Meanwhile, the state lurches from fiscal tragedy to fiscal farce.

Much of the concern over the past few years has centered on America s yawning current account and fiscal deficits, and its effort to get China to let the yuan float more freely against the dollar.

Too often, we cite size and fiscal difficulties as excuses not to participate, even though others not so well off have made commendable efforts towards this worthwhile effort on the part of our young people.

Fiscal consolidation was not, however, the result of formal fiscal rules.

In December, as Europeans shifted towards fiscal rigor, the US Congress extended for two years the tax cuts initiated by George W. Bush which almost everyone interpreted as yet another effort to boost the US economy.

Although their supporters wanted to make them permanent, claiming that they were temporary allowed for the circumvention of procedural requirements in the legislative process that Democrats had created in a vain effort to guarantee fiscal sanity.

Fiscal Follies

Fiscal stimulus is turning into fiscal austerity and a drag on growth.

Europe s Fiscal Wormhole

America s Fiscal Isolationism

Fiscal Closing Time?

Fiscal Child Abuse

Germany s Fiscal Follies

India s Fiscal Follies

Shorting Fiscal Consolidation

Alternative Fiscal Medicine?

Continuing the effort

The Greek people are making an almost superhuman effort to stabilize their finances and restructure their economy. But the government continues to miss its fiscal targets, more because of the global slowdown than through any fault of its own.

The impact was greater in countries that had a history of structural fiscal problems, maintained loose fiscal policies, and ignored fiscal reforms during the boom years.

America s Exceptional Fiscal Conservatism

Europe s Empty Fiscal Compact

Fiscal Fibs and Follies

Gaming US Fiscal Reform

America s Fiscal Cliff Dwellers

Is Fiscal Stimulus Pointless?

Obama s Difficult Fiscal Summer

Fiscal policy was required.

Threading the Fiscal Needle

Fixing America s Fiscal Problem

e. Special fiscal policies

Thanks for the effort.

The effort failed completely.

What is needed are constraints on fiscal policy by each country, not a supranational fiscal authority.

In contrast, QE3 will be associated with a fiscal contraction, possibly even a large fiscal cliff.

And, unaccompanied by a credible medium term fiscal strategy, it unnecessarily excited the apostles of fiscal doom.

A determined effort by emerging market countries that have external surpluses to expand imports from the US (and Europe) would do far more to address the global trade imbalances over the long run than changes to their exchange rates or fiscal policies.

Japan s incoming government has already signaled an economic policy pivot, relying on what it directly controls (fiscal policy), together with pressure on the Bank of Japan, to relax the monetary policy stance, in an effort to generate faster growth and higher inflation.

Fiscal Austerity Versus European Society