Motivated by insufficient fiscal discipline in democracy, we introduce and examine “Catenarian Discipline Rules”. An office-holder decides in each period whether to use available resources for his/her own personal consumption or for providing public goods for the population. In the unique...

Using a new dataset on sectoral credit exposures covering financial and non-financial sectors in 115 economies over the period 1940–2014, we document the following evidence that corporate debt plays a key role in explaining boom-bust cycles, financial crises, and slow macroeconomic recoveries:...