We investigate the implications of extra-normal government spending under the COVID-19 pandemic for commercial bank lending growth between 2019Q4 and 2020Q4 in a large sample of over 3000 banks from 71 countries. We control for pre-pandemic structural factors, bank characteristics and government...

An earlier paper by the author investigated the quantitative implications, for the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies, of a model treating the determination of long-term interest rates by explicitly imposing the market clearing equilibrium condition that the quantity of bonds issued...

The prevailing view of the economic consequences of financing government deficits, as reflected in the recent economics literature and in recent public policy debates, reflects serious misunderstandings. Debt-financed deficits need not "crowd out" any private investment, and may even "crowd in"...

I construct a simple model with sticky prices and interest rate targets, closed by fiscal theory of the price level with long-term debt and fiscal and monetary policy rules. Fiscal surpluses rise following periods of deficit, to repay accumulated debt, but surpluses do not respond to arbitrary...

We outline two divergent exit strategies of the U.S. from the post COVID-19 debt-overhang, and analyze their implications on Emerging Markets and global stability. The first strategy is the U.S. aiming at returning to the 2019, pre-COVID mode of loose fiscal policy and accommodating monetary...

We define the notion of a 'de facto fiscal space' of a country as the inverse of the tax-years it would take to repay the public debt. Specifically, we measure the outstanding public debt relative to the de facto tax base, where the latter measures the realized tax collection, averaged across...

I use the valuation equation of government debt to understand fiscal and monetary policy in and following the great recession of 2008-2009, to think about fiscal pressures on US inflation, and what sequence of events might surround such an inflation. I emphasize that a fiscal inflation can come...

This paper evaluates optimal public investment and fiscal policy for countries characterized by limited tax and debt capacities. We study a non stochastic CRS endogenous growth model where public expenditure is an input in the production process, in countries where distortions and limited...

The fiscal theory says that the price level is determined by the ratio of nominal debt to the present value of real primary surpluses. I analyze long-term debt and optimal policy in the fiscal theory. I find that the maturity structure of the debt matters. For example, it determines whether news...

This paper investigates the behavior of public debt in countries forming a union (as outlined, e.g., by the Maastricht treaty). We consider a federal union of states where the center has limited control over the spending patterns of the union members, and where the union members' behavior has...