Corruption, particularly political or “grand” corruption, distorts the entire decision-making process connected with public investment projects. The degree of distortions is higher with weaker auditing institutions. The evidence presented shows that higher corruption is associated with (i)...

The paper applies an empirical model, based on the economic theory of public choice, to the Group of Seven countries. It is discovered: (a) that deficit financing does appear to contribute to increased real government spending; (b) that the demand for government services as a whole does not...

This paper constructs a general equilibrium model with monopolistically competitive firms and endogenous markups where government spending consists of both consumption and investment goods. It is shown that when markups are countercyclical, increases in the share of investment goods in aggregate...

We study the effects of electoral institutions on the size and composition of public expenditure in OECD and Latin American countries. We present a model emphasizing the distinction between purchases of goods and services, which are easier to target geographically, and transfers, which are...

This paper assesses the optimal setting of fiscal spending and foreign exchange rate intervention policies in response to volatile foreign aid, in a small open economy model that incorporates typical features of low-income countries. Within a class of policy rules, it jointly considers the...

This paper addresses the potential effects on human capital accumulation and economic growth of the alternative compositions of public expenditures in the context of a computable dynamic general equilibrium model of overlapping generations and heterogeneous agents in which altruistic parents...