In an attempt to clean up an unruly literature, we specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for household optimality in a model where money is the only …financial asset and provide the relevant proofs. We use our results to analyse when de‡flationary bubbles can and cannot exist. Our...

In this paper I analyse four different but related concepts, each of which highlights some aspect of the way in which the state acquires command over real resources through its ability to issue fiat money. They are (1) seigniorage (the change in the monetary base), (2) Central Bank revenue (the...

Most interpretations of the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis in 1992-93 ignore the key role played by structural policy spillovers among European countries, and overlook the effects of coordination (or lack thereof) of monetary and exchange rate policies among the countries making up the periphery...

This lecture is a tour d’horizon of the financial crisis aimed at extracting lessons for future financial regulation. It combines normative recommendations based on conventional welfare economics with positive assessments of the kind of measures likely to be adopted based on political economy...

An economy is in a liquidity trap when monetary policy cannot influence either real or nominal variables of interest. A necessary condition for this is that the short nominal interest rate is constrained by its lower bound, typically zero. The paper considers two small analytical models, one...

The paper draws lessons from the experience of the past year for the conduct of central banks in the pursuit of macroeconomic and financial stability. Macroeconomic stability is defined as either price stability or as price stability and sustainable output or employment growth. Financial...

The paper considers three methods for eliminating the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates and thus for restoring symmetry to domain over which the central bank can vary its policy rate. They are: (1) abolishing currency (which would also be a useful crime-fighting measure); (2) paying...

The purpose of the UDROP proposal is to prevent debt rollover crises for foreign-currency-enominated debt instruments. For such liabilities, there is no international analogue to the domestic lender of last resort or to domestic deposit insurance. UDROP stands for Universal Debt Rollover Option...

This study updates and extends to the period 88/89-92-93 our earlier analysis of the public finances of India. With the collapse of the communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, India found itself, by early 1991, in the unenviable position of having possibly the most...