As the world economy slowly recovers from the very deep and widespread recession of recent years, many countries confront very serious fiscal imbalances. How much time they have to deal with these imbalances is a central question, the salience of which can only have been increased by the ongoing...

Federal Reserve purchases of bonds in recent years have meant that a smaller proportion of long-dated government debt has had to be held by other investors (private sector and foreign official institutions). But the US Treasury has been lengthening the maturity of its issuance at the same time....

Large-scale central bank purchases of government bonds have made the long-term interest rate key in the monetary policy debate. How central banks react to bond market movements has varied greatly from one episode to another. Driving the term premium in long-term rates negative may stimulate...