This paper discusses the fundamental determinants of inequality. These are identified as world or market forces, social norms, ownership of real and human capital, and the role of government. The change in the relative role of these factors in determining inequality during economic development...

The paper examines empirically the question of whether more unequal societies spend more on income redistribution than their more egalitarian counterparts. Theoretical arguments on this issue are inconclusive. The political economy literature suggests that redistributive spending is higher in...

This paper examines whether there is a case for temporary but persistent fiscal surpluses in economies heavily endowed with nonrenewable resources. It finds that there generally is a case. Fiscal surpluses permit replacing nonfinancial wealth with financial assets, the return on which increases...

This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010....

This paper provides a simple, quantitative, net worth-based, approach to assessing the need for central bank capital. It derives a concept of ""core capital"" (a function of the central bank''s operating expenditures and the carrying cost of its international reserves) as the minimum capital...