The impact of the European Union fiscal rules on economic growth

► This paper studies the impact of Maastricht and Stability and Growth Pact fiscal rules on European Union (EU) economic growth. ► Several panel data estimators are used over a group of 15 EU countries. ► A comparison is made with a group of 8 OECD countries. ► This paper shows that the institutional changes that occurred in the EU after 1992 were not harmful to growth in the EU. ► It is also shown that growth is slightly higher in the period in which the fulfilment of the 3% criteria for the public deficit started to be officially assessed (in 1997) in the European Union.