  We study the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati model by the method of the boundary
effective action. The truncation of this action to the bending mode \pi
consistently describes physics in a wide range of regimes both at the classical
and at the quantum level. The Vainshtein effect, which restores agreement with
precise tests of general relativity, follows straightforwardly. We give a
simple and general proof of stability, i.e. absence of ghosts in the
fluctuations, valid for most of the relevant cases, like for instance the
spherical source in asymptotically flat space. However we confirm that around
certain interesting self-accelerating cosmological solutions there is a ghost.
We consider the issue of quantum corrections. Around flat space \pi becomes
strongly coupled below a macroscopic length of 1000 km, thus impairing the
predictivity of the model. Indeed the tower of higher dimensional operators
which is expected by a generic UV completion of the model limits predictivity
at even larger length scales. We outline a non-generic but consistent choice of
counterterms for which this disaster does not happen and for which the model
remains calculable and successful in all the astrophysical situations of
interest. By this choice, the extrinsic curvature K_{\mu\nu} acts roughly like
a dilaton field controlling the strength of the interaction and the cut-off
scale at each space-time point. At the surface of Earth the cutoff is \sim 1 cm
but it is unlikely that the associated quantum effects be observable in table
top experiments.
