We generate data on the relative preferences of policy makers for inflation and output stability and reexamine how policy makers and political parties behave for 24 countries by using this new approach. This behavior is essential in both the partisan cycle models and the opportunistic political...

We investigate whether late redistribution programs that can be targeted toward low income families, but that may distort savings decisions, can “dominate” early redistribution programs that cannot be targeted as a result of information constraints. We use simple two-period overlapping...

We study how the relationship between economic growth and inequality depends upon the levels of funding of two of the largest government programs, public education and social security. We do this in the context of an overlapping generations economy with heterogeneous agents where the government...

In this paper, we study how the privatization and deregulation of intermediate goods industries influence capital accumulation. Our model is solved under three alternative scenarios: (i) the intermediate sector is composed of a public monopoly under government control; (ii) the intermediate...