This study investigates the impact of behavioral impulses, specifically corruption perception and government effectiveness, on macroeconomic stability through fiscal transmission channels. A Vector Autoregression (VAR) model was used to analyze the impulse responses of key macroeconomic indicators, including tax revenues, state budget expenditures, and GDP per capita, to shocks in corruption perception and governance quality. The findings reveal that improvements in corruption perception initially boost tax revenues and economic growth but have diminishing effects over time, emphasizing the need for sustained policy enforcement. In contrast, government effectiveness has a delayed but more persistent impact on fiscal stability. The study challenges the greasing-the-wheels hypothesis, demonstrating that corruption weakens rather than facilitates economic efficiency. The study contributes to the literature on behavioral economics by demonstrating that public trust, shaped by corruption control and effective governance, plays a more pivotal role in maintaining macroeconomic stability than the previously acknowledged indicators of individual well-being.

The 2022 European energy crisis exposed the macroeconomic vulnerability of EU economies to electricity price shocks and raised urgent questions about the stabilising role of renewable energy penetration. This study examines in how far changes in electricity price components affect macroeconomic stability in Europe and whether renewable energy penetration has buffered these effects during the crisis period. Using a balanced panel of 29 European countries over 2019–2024, the analysis estimates the impact of log changes in electricity prices on a composite Macroeconomic Stability Index (MSI) using two-way fixed-effects models with crisis-year heterogeneous slopes, interaction terms, and two-way clustered standard errors. The results show that increases in non-household electricity prices are associated with statistically significant declines in macroeconomic stability, particularly in 2023 (β = −0.084, p < 0.01) and 2024 (β = −0.333, p < 0.05). A 10% rise in business electricity prices reduced the MSI by approximately 0.009–0.010 points in 2023 (around 4% of one standard deviation) and by about 0.029 points in 2024 (around 13% of one standard deviation). In 2022, the adverse effect was significant in low-renewables countries (ME = −0.056) but statistically insignificant in high-renewables countries, indicating short-run buffering. Joint tests confirm that crisis-period slope shifts (χ² = 30.576, p < 0.001) and renewable moderation effects (χ² = 8.603, p = 0.035) are statistically significant.