A central proposition regarding effects of different mechanisms of financing public expenditures is that, under specific circumstances, it makes no difference to the level of aggregate demand if the government finances its outlays by debt or taxation. This so-called Ricardian equivalence states...

This paper explores the empirical relevance of arguments based on lack of credibility for explaining high ex post real interest rates afetr stabilization programs were implemented in Argentina, Israel, and Mexico in the mid-1980s.

We do not intent here to explore the choice of nominal anchors in the context of major inflation-stabilization programmes, as this topics has been covered, to a large extent, in proceding literature. Instead, we focus on cases of moderate inflation, such as Chile, Colombia, Israel and Mexico. In...