In response to the record-breaking COVID19 recession, many governments have adopted unprecedented fiscal stimuli. While countercyclical fiscal policy is effective in fighting conventional recessions, little is known about the effectiveness of fiscal policy in the current environment with...

While theoretical models consistently predict that government spending shocks should lead to appreciation of the domestic currency, empirical studies have been stubbornly finding depreciation. Using daily data on U.S. defense spending (announced and actual payments), we document that the dollar...

Even with well-developed capital markets, there is no private market mechanism for trading between current and future generations, so a potential role for public old-age pension systems is to spread economic and demographic shocks among different generations. This paper evaluates the smoothing...