In this essay, I analyze Salvador Allende's economic policies in Chile during the early 1970s. I argue that the explosion of inflation during his administration (above 1,500% on a six-month annualized measure) was predictable, and that the government's response to it, through massive and strict...

This paper investigates the relationship between monetary policy and growth in five Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru).The analysis focuses on the effects of expected and unexpected monetary growth on output, and explicitly incorporates the relationship between...

Countries have increased significantly their public-sector borrowing since the Global Financial Crisis. In this context, we document several potential fiscal dominance effects during 2000-2017 under Inflation Targeting (IT), and non-IT regimes. Higher ratios of public debt-to-GDP are associated...

As a share of GDP, the U.S. Federal debt held by the public exceeds 50 percent in FY2009, the highest debt ratio since 1955. Projections indicate the debt ratio may be in the 70-100 percent range within ten years. In many respects, the temptation to inflate away some of this debt burden is...

We investigate the resilience of CESEE countries during ECB monetary cycles after the entrance of ten countries to the EU in 2004. Undeniably, these countries have experienced a 'miracle' growth during the 2000s decade. However, several obstacles appeared following the global financial crisis...

This paper studies the optimal use of distortive policies aimed at raising a given real revenue, in a general equilibrium framework in which lump-sum taxes are absent. The policies analyzed are an inflation tax,commercial policy, and an implicit tax on capital inflows implemented by capital...

This paper investigates an economy in which there are short-term wage contracts that are re-negotiated under certain conditions. This paper determines the optimal frequency of wage re-negotiation and shows that it depends positively on measures of aggregate variability and Phillips curve slope....

This paper argues that the frequent failure of the debt swaps is not an accident. Instead, it follows from fundamental forces driven by the market's assessment of the scarcity of fiscal revenue relative to the demand for fiscal outlays. It follows from the observation that arbitrage forces...

This paper investigates budgetary rules for an economy characterized by inflation and volatile relative prices. We view the budgetary process as a limited contingencies contract between the treasury and the ministers. The budgetary process allows a minister, whose realized real budget falls...

In this paper we analyze empirically the most important implications of two family political economy models of inflation: the "myopic? government approach and the "weak" government approach. In myopic government models inflation is the deliberate outcome of politicians strategic behavior, while...