This paper explores the implications of public investment for macroeconomic performance within a simple two-period policymaking model. We show that under the balanced-budget rule, the contribution of public investment to future output plays a key role in determining its effects on macroeconomic...

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...

We consider an economy where competing political parties alternate in office. Due to rent-seeking motives, incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimum level. Parties cannot commit to future policies, but they can forge a political compromise where each...

In this paper we evaluate internationally agreed limits on public sector debt and deficits, such as those agreed by the EC countries in the Treaty of Maastricht as preconditions for membership in a monetary union. These fiscal convergence criteria require that general government budget deficits...

The fiscal gains from, and hence the political incentives for, an increase in the inflation rate of ten percentage points may be substantial: Swedish data from 1994 suggests an annual real flow of 3–4% of GDP, or a capitalized value of nearly 100% of GDP. These gains would have arisen mainly...

This study updates and extends to the period 1988/9--1992/3 our earlier analysis of the public finances of India. The foreign exchange crisis of early 1991 forced the government to recognize the severity of the fiscal crisis it was facing and led to the implementation of a restrictive fiscal and...

Between 2007 and 2009, government expenditures increased rapidly across the OECD countries. While economic research on the impact of government purchases has flourished, in the data, about three quarters of the increase in expenditures in the United States (and more in other countries) was in...

Weak public institutions, including high levels of corruption, characterize many developing countries. With a simple model, we demonstrate that institutional quality has important implications for the design of monetary policies and can produce several departures from the conventional wisdom. We...