Article history: Accepted 30 October 2013 JEL classification: E62 O11 O41

Article history: Received 2 July 2007 Revised 16 September 2008 Available online 26 September 2008 JEL classification: E21 E25 E62

The reformulation of the median voter hypothesis and its testing proposed in Milanovic (2000) has been criticized from four different perspectives. The critiques are discussed and assessed. JEL classification: D31, E62

We consider optimal government debt maturity in a deterministic economy which the can issue any arbitrary structure and bond prices are function of government’s current future primary surpluses. The sequentially chooses policy, taking into account how choices—which impact policy—feed back prices. show that issuing consols constitutes unique stationary portfolio, as it boosts credibility to poli...

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...

The ‘noise trader’ model of De Long et al. provides a plausible account of the determination of the equity premium. Extension of the model to allow for privatization of publicly-owned assets yields insights into the positive political economy of privatization and into the normative question of how policies should be evaluated in the presence of mistaken beliefs. JEL Classification: E62

Analytical expectational stability results are obtained for both Euler-equation and infinitehorizon adaptive learning in a simple stochastic growth model. The rational expectations equilibrium is stable under both types of learning, though there are differences in the learning dynamics. JEL Classification: E62, D84, E21, E43.

Studies of the effect of government spending on unemployment are potentially confounded by reverse causality. To address the endogeneity problem, we exploit variation in a porkbarrel road-building program, and find that higher government expenditure on road-building substantially reduces local unemployment. JEL Codes: E24, E62, H30, H54,

We use a panel of 155 countries for 1970-2010 to study (two-way) causality between government spending, revenue and growth. Our results suggest the existence of weak evidence supporting causality from expenditures or revenues to GDP per capita and provide evidence supporting Wagner’s Law. JEL: C23, E62, H50.

We note some problems in Alesina and Angeletos (2005) and suggest a way to maintain the key insight of that paper, which is that a demand for fairness could lead to di¤erent economic systems such as those observed in France versus the US (multiple equilibria). JEL classi…cation: D31, E62, H2, P16.