Premiums on US sovereign CDS have risen to persistently elevated levels since the financial crisis. In this paper, we ask whether these premiums reflect the probability of a US fiscal default, namely a state in which budget balance can no longer be restored by further raising taxes or eroding the real value of debt by raising inflation. To that end, we develop an equilibrium macrofinance model ...

This paper constructs a dynamic model of government borrowing and default. The government faces a fiscal constraint in that it cannot raise tax rates. By defaulting on the debt, the government can increase domestic consumption. Two types of default arise in this environment: fiscal defaults and aggregate defaults. Fiscal defaults occur because the government cannot service the debt due to its i...

This paper characterizes the dynamic effects of shocks in government spending and taxes on economic activity in the United States in the postwar period. It does so by using a structural VAR approach that relies on institutional information about the tax and transfer systems and the timing of tax collections to identify the automatic response of taxes and spending to activity, and, by implicatio...

How are the optimal tax and debt policies affected if government can default on its debt? We address this question from a normative perspective in an economy with noncontingent debt, domestic default, labor taxes. On one hand, prevents incurring future distortions associated servicing debt. other risk gives rise to endogenous credit limits that hinder government's ability smooth characterize fi...

Theory predicts that fiscal policy can affect economic growth by adjusting incentives for investment and labor as well as by distorting after-tax returns across sectors. This paper examines the effect of fiscal policy on growth rates first graphically, and then through two models, one of which disaggregates fiscal policy variables. I find evidence that increased size of government is negatively...

How did modern and centralized fiscal institutions emerge? We develop a model that explains (i) why pre-industrial states relied on private individuals to collect taxes; (ii) why after 1600 both England and France moved from competitive methods for collecting revenues to allocating the right to collect taxes to a small group of financiers—an intermediate institution that we call cabal tax farmi...

We analyze optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy with distortionary labor income taxes, nominal rigidities and nominal debt of various maturities. Optimal policy prescribes the exclusive use of long term debt. Such debt mitigates the distortions associated with hedging fiscal shocks by allowing the government to allocate them efficiently across states and periods.

We assess the implications of demographic uncertainty for the United Kingdom’s fiscal position. We construct stochastic population projections and then use the framework provided by generational accounts to project government revenues and expenditures. We present stochastic paths for the budget balance over time and also evaluate the frequency distribution of the increase in taxes needed to del...

Empirical evidence evaluating the e¢ciency of economic instruments is still rare, despite signi...cant theoretical advances over the last decades. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate one form of environmental taxation, the French tax on air pollution from 1990-99. While starting out in 1985 as a tax levied only on sulphur emissions, the tax base was subsequently extended to encompass also e...