Recent research suggests that management of the public sector's debt can have important effects on a country's macroeconomic performance. This article provides an overview of the factors that the recent literature has identified as important in determining the optimal composition of the public...

Critics of the tight monetary policies pursued by some of the countries hurt by the 1997 Asian financial crisis have questioned the presumption that tight money can help sustain the value of a currency. The issue is actually an empirical one because theory does not unambiguously predict the...