As the recent recession unfolded, policymakers in the U.S. and abroad employed both monetary and fiscal stabilization tools to help mitigate the downturn. One of the tools that can be used by fiscal policymakers is to actively purchase more goods and services: the idea being that the...

“Fiscal Imbalance: Problems, Solutions, and Implications” was the topic of the fifth annual Philadelphia Fed Policy Forum held on December 2, 2005. This event, sponsored by the Bank’s Research Department, brought together economic scholars, policymakers, and market economists to discuss...