Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. THE MAIN STYLIZED FACTS: AGGREGATE DATA -- III. THE MAIN STYLIZED FACTS: BILATERAL DATA -- IV. CAPITAL FLOWS AND EXTERNAL ADJUSTMENT -- V. CONCLUDING REMARKS -- REFERENCES.

International financial integration allows countries to become net creditors or net debtors with respect to the rest of the world. In this paper, we show that a small set of fundamentals--shifts in relative output levels, the stock of public debt and demographic factors--can do much to explain...

This paper examines the effects of taxation of human capital, physical capital and foreign assets in a multi-sector model of endogenous growth. It is shown that in general the growth rate is reduced by taxes on capital and labor (human capital) income. When the government faces no borrowing...

This paper examines the effects of taxation of human capital, physical capital and foreign assets in a multi-sector model of endogenous growth. It is shown that in general the growth rate is reduced by taxes on capital and labor (human capital) income. When the government faces no borrowing...

This paper studies the effects of human and physical capital income taxation on growth, and examines how these effects depend on the technologies for human capital accumulation and 'leisure'. It then derives the normative implications of the analysis for the optimal taxation of factor incomes....

This paper examines the rationale for the imposition of fiscal rules as a way to reduce budgetary imbalances. It presents theoretical arguments for the existence of a “fiscal deficit bias” and the empirical evidence on the economic, political and institutional factors leading to this bias....

The effects of income and consumption taxation are examined in the context of models in which the growth process is driven by the accumulation of human and physical capital. The different channels through which these taxes affect economic growth are discussed, and it is shown that in general the...

When should persistent current account deficits be of concern to policymakers? We address this question by developing a framework for analysing current account sustainability, that explicitly takes into account willingness to pay and willingness to lend in addition to intertemporal solvency....

This note presents a simple model where the decision on the degree of wage indexation is taken by a 'large' agent, such as the government. The optimal degree of indexing is shown to depend on the variance of real shocks and on the 'inflations bias' of the government, due to the incentive to...

The effects of income and consumption taxation are examined in the context of models in which the growth process is driven by the accumulation of human and physical capital. The different channels through which these taxes affect economic growth are discussed. It is shown that the effects of...