Transfers to individuals were a larger part of the 2009 U.S. stimulus package than government purchases. Using a two-agent New Keynesian model, this paper shows analytically that the multiplier on targeted transfers to financially constrained households is (i) larger than the purchase multiplier...

In a world with volatile food prices, countries have an incentive to shelter their populations from induced real income shocks. When some agents are net food producers while others are net consumers, there is scope for insurance between the two groups. A domestic social protection scheme would...

The authors use Morocco's national survey of living standards to measure the short-term welfare impacts of prior estimates of the price changes attributed to various trade policy reforms for cereals-the country's main food staple. They find small impacts on mean consumption and inequality in the...

A common criticism of balanced budget fiscal rules is that they increase the consumption volatility of financially constrained households who are unable to smooth consumption. This paper evaluates the welfare consequences of simple fiscal rules in a model of a small commodity-exporting country...

Commodity-exporting developing economies are often characterized as having needlessly procyclical fiscal policy: spending when commodity prices are high and cutting back when prices fall. The standard policy advice is instead to save during price windfalls and maintain spending during price...

The European Commission's "NextGenerationEU” COVID-19 recovery package has underscored interest in the size of regional fiscal multipliers in Europe. While the objective of these funds is the long-term transformation toward more sustainable green growth and digitalization in EU economies,...

Alternative scenarios are considered for reducing by one billion the number of people living below $1.25 a day. The low-case, "pessimistic," path to that goal would see the developing world outside China returning to its slower pace of growth and poverty reduction of the 1980s and 1990s, though...