This paper revisits the traditional hierarchy of macroeconomic stabilization tools outside of the zero lower bound. In the benchmark New-Keynesian model monetary policy is always preferred to fiscal policy because fiscal policy has relative costs without delivering any relative benefits. I explore the robustness of this standard “monetary supremacy” result in three steps. First, motivated by em...

In the discrete-time new-Keynesian model with public debt, Ramsey optimal policy eliminates indeterminacy of simple-rules multiple equilibria between fiscal theory price level versus an unpleasant equilibrium. If debt volatility is taken into account loss function, interest rate responds to besides inflation and output gap. Else, Taylor rule identical when there zero debt. The fiscal-rule param...

BACKGROUND Fiscal Decentralization (FD) in many cases is encouraged as a strong means of improving the efficiency and equity in the provision of public goods, such as healthcare services. This issue has urged the researchers to experimentally examine the relationship between fiscal decentralization indicators and health outcomes. In this study we examine the effect of Fiscal Decentralization in...

Appealing to the twin deficit hypothesis, according to which shocks to the government budget move the current account in the same direction, many observers call for fiscal consolidation in the US as a necessary measure to reduce the large external imbalance of this country. We reconsider the international transmission mechanism in a standard two-country two-good business cycle model, and find t...

This paper is motivated by an important puzzle that arises from the contrasting macroeconomic experience across developing regions in the recent decades. In sharp contrast to East Asia, the fiscal policies in much of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa are characterized by large fiscal deficits and volatilities of fiscal outcomes. In order to address both large deficits and volatile fiscal out...

Despite its widespread appeal and long history in American government, the initiative process remains controversial. One of the most recurrent criticisms is that the initiative allows well organized and well financed special interests to subvert the policy process. This article reports some scientific evidence on the subversion hypothesis. For the period 19872000, the evidence shows that the in...

This paper uses a large panel data set to examine the relation between elections and fiscal policy. We find evidence of political budget cycles in both developed and developing countries: government spending increases before elections while revenues fall, leading to a larger deficit in election years. We demonstrate that political budget cycles are much larger in developing countries than in de...

We introduce aggregate uncertainty and complete markets into Blanchard’s (1985) perpetual youth model. We show how to construct a simple formula for the pricing kernel in terms of observable aggregate variables. We study a pure trade version of our model and we show it behaves much like the two-period overlapping generations model. Our methods are easily generalized to economies with production...