This paper uses an intertemporal model of public finances to show that political instability can cause taxes to be tilted to the future, resulting in a fiscal deficit that is suboptimal and only weakly sustainable (in the sense of Quintos). This occurs because political instability gives the...

Historically, Chile has been an economy dominated by mineral and agro-industrial products and subject to frequent external shocks particularly in copper prices. Since the 1980s, the authorities have developed various mechanisms to cope with these shocks and dampen their effects on the domestic...

This paper explores the qualitative and quantitative implications of optimal taxation in a developing economy when economic growth is endogenously determined. We differentiate this class of economies from a developed economy in two aspects: informal sector is quantitatively significant and...

American fiscal policy has been procyclical: Washington wasted the expansion period 2001-2007 by running budget deficits, but by 2011 had come to feel constrained by inherited debt to withdraw fiscal stimulus. Chile has achieved countercyclical fiscal policy – saving in booms and easing in...

This note characterises the evolution of Chile's public debt, and discusses its implications for the management of the country's monetary policy. Historically, the main issuer of public debt in Chile was the central bank. The government, in turn, has recently started to engage in a more active...

This paper reviews the design and operation of the Chilean fiscal rule in the past 30 years. Using different empirical approaches, we assess its impact on fiscal procyclicality, public debt, and public investment. While there has been substantial progress in building a modern institutional...

This paper analyzes, structural budget surplus (SBS) rule evidence for the Chilean economy. We examine its effect on macroeconomic variables, such as credit worthiness, output volatility, policy effectiveness, and welfare level gains over time due to economic growth. Thus, SBS becomes a public...

This paper examines whether there is a case for temporary but persistent fiscal surpluses in economies heavily endowed with nonrenewable resources. It finds that there generally is a case. Fiscal surpluses permit replacing nonfinancial wealth with financial assets, the return on which increases...

Compliance with the structural budget surplus rule, which has been in place since 2001, has allowed the government to maintain a counter-cyclical fiscal stance in an environment of rising copper prices, while delivering a gradual reduction in public indebtedness. Monetary policy is conducted...

Structural VAR and Structural VEC models were estimated for Chile and Colombia, aiming at identifying fiscal policy shocks in both countries between 1990 and 2005. The impulse responses obtained allow the calculation of a peso-for-peso ($/$) effect on output of a shock to public spending and to...