There is widespread consensus among economists that high inflation is often caused by the government's need to raise seignorage to finance high budget deficits. Depending on the shape of the money demand function, steady-state seignorage may follow a Laffer curve, where seignorage first rises...

The authors develop and apply a macroeconomic general equilibrium model for Zimbabwe. The country faces the challenge of engaging in a program of fiscal stabilization and structural reform to address its current fiscal imbalance, high unemployment, and low growth prospects. The authors discuss...

The authors analyze the impact of fiscal policy changes in openeconomies, using a rational expectation framework that nests two prototype economies: a neoclassical full-employment benchmark economy, with intertemporally optimizing consumers and firms and instant clearing of asset, goods, and...

For the past two decades, Chile has consistently pursued a course of macroeconomic stabilization and deep economic reform. But in recent years, real exchange rate appreciation and persistent moderate inflation have become key concerns for Chilean policymakers, suggesting the need for further...

The authors empirically review and analyze the link between income distribution and aggregate savings. Recent research has focused on the impact of income inequality and growth. Less attention has been paid to the link between inequality and savings. Once the conventional representative-agent...

The 1990s have seen renewed interest in themes of economic growth and development. This is a welcome change after a decade and a half during which macroeconomics was dominated by a concern with short-term adjustment and stabilization issues -- and basic problems of growth, capital accumulation,...

The transmission of shocks and policy changes depends crucially on the structure of the economy. The authors analyze the impact of two classes of external shocks in open economies, using a rational-expectations framework that tests three prototype economies: (1) a neoclassical, full-employment...

This paper extends earlier work on current-price budget identities to treat constant-price flow relations. It introduces relative prices and constant-prices values for all relevant output and aggregate demand components and permits a distinction between real variables and relative price changes....

Fiscal deficits have been at the forefront of macroeconomic adjustment in the 1980s, both in developing and developed countries. Fiscal deficits were blamed in good part for the assortment of ills that beset developing countries in the 1980s: over-indebtedness leading to the debt crisis...

The authors analyze the structure of public deficits in Chile, distinguishing between consolidated nonfinancial public deficits and quasifiscal losses of the Central Bank - focusing on the determinants and sustainability of the deficits. In the framework of an estimated portfolio model, they...