In the context of a sticky price DSGE model subject to government expenditure and preference shocks where governments issue only nominal non-contingent bonds we examine the implications for optimal inflation of changes in the level and average maturity of government debt. We analyse these...

We show how to model portfolio models in the presence of long bonds. Specifically we study optimal fiscal policy under incomplete markets where the government issues bonds of maturity N 1. Assuming the existence of long bonds introduces an additional intertemporal mechanism that makes taxes...

In earlier work we documented two episodes in which a sharp fiscal consolidation was associated with a surprisingly large expansion in private domestic demand. In this paper we draw on further evidence to investigate if and when fiscal policy changes can have such non-Keynesian effects. In the...

A growing literature integrates theories of debt management into models of optimal fiscal policy. One promising theory argues that the composition of government debt should be chosen so that fluctuations in the market value of debt offset changes in expected future deficits. This complete market...

In an economy with financial imperfections, Ricardian equivalence holds when prices are flexible and the steady-state distribution of consumption is uniform, or labor is inelastic. With different steady-state consumption levels, Ricardian equivalence fails, but tax cuts, somewhat paradoxically,...

A central tenet of the Maastricht Treaty is that a successful European Monetary Union requires sustainable public finances of its member states. Yet there is no clear definition of sustainability. The economist’s common use of the term builds on the concept of an intertemporal budget...

Under free capital mobility, confidence crises can lead to devaluations even when fixed exchange rates are viable, if fiscal authorities can obtain temporary money financing of deficits. During a crisis domestic interest rates increase, reflecting the expected devaluation. Rather than selling...

We estimate the effects of fiscal policy on the labor market in US data. An increase in government spending of 1 percent of GDP generates output and unemployment multipliers respectively of about 1.2 per cent (at one year) and 0.6 percentage points (at the peak). Each percentage point increase...

This Paper studies the effects of fiscal policy on GDP, inflation and interest rates in five OECD countries, using a structural Vector Autoregression approach. Its main results can be summarized as follows: 1) The effects of fiscal policy on GDP tend to be small: government spending multipliers...

Assuming the role of debt management is to provide hedging against fiscal shocks we consider three questions: i) what indicators can be used to assess the performance of debt management? ii) how well have historical debt management policies performed? and iii) how is that performance affected by...