Scotland is engaged in a lively and on-going debate on greater fiscal autonomy and independence, which is politically controversial, especially in respect of tax-varying powers. The Scottish Parliament has the power to make a balanced-budget adjustment in public expenditure by varying the basic...

Is the observed large increase in consumer indebtedness since 1970 beneficial for U.S. consumers? This paper quantitatively investigates the macroeconomic and welfare implications of relaxing borrowing constraints using a model with preferences featuring temptation and self-control. The model...

This paper searches for a general equilibrium model of optimal growth and endogenous fiscal policy with the aim of explaining the interaction between private agents and fiscal authorities in the U.S., West Germany, Japan and the U.K. over the period 1960-1996. Our search is conducted in the...

The paper develops a unified general equilibrium model includingsavings with overlapping generations, investment and search unemploament. Long-run analytical results for the small open economy identify capital accumulation as a prime transmission channel. The effects of integration on...

The present paper studies the growth and efficiency consequences of pension funding with individual retirement accounts in a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic lifespan and labor income uncertainty. We distinguish between economies with rational and hyperbolic...

We study the inter- and intra-generational welfare consequences of alternative pension fund policies in response to unexpected demographic, financial, and macro-economic shocks. Our analysis is based on an applied OLG model of a small open economy with heterogeneous agents featuring a two-pillar...

The present paper studies the growth and efficiency consequences of pension funding with individual retirement accounts in a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic lifespan and labor income uncertainty. We distinguish between economies with rational and hyperbolic...