The paper considers the interplay of the design and execution of stabilization policy and structural reform with the role of various agents and pressure groups in a democracy. The context is the political economy of Israel's transition from a successful stabilization to a renewed growth process...

The comprehensive stabilization program that Israel launched in July 1985 has brought about a dramatic reduction in inflation at no visible unemployment cost while improving the external financial position of the country. The program's success lies in a drastic cut in the government deficit but...

The first part of the paper analyzes the various components (as well as likely failures) in the complex two-way market chain that links the supply of economic theories with the design, sale and implementation of workable economic policies. Among other aspects of this link two points are...

The paper analyzes the change in unemployment in 12 OECD countries over the period 1970-83 in terms of underlying aggregate supply and demand shifts. Earlier evidence on wage gaps (given by Brunoand Sachs) is revised and extended. For most European countries a process of reduction in gaps is...

The paper surveys the macroeconomic literature of the last decade with emphasis on the implications of the New Classical and Rational Expectations critiques for the Keynesian paradigm and the role of macro policies. This is done on the background of the main macro developments of the l970'a and...

This paper illustrates the role for macroeconomic policy coordination when interdependent economies are pursuing disinflationary policies. Under flexible exchangerates, policy makers have an incentive to reduce inflation by pursuing contractionary policies that yield a currency appreciation. In...

This paper develops a general equilibrium two country, two commodity dynamic simulation model of international trade in commodities and financial claims. The model generalizes the Heckscher-Ohlin static theory of trade by incorporating costs of quickly adjusting levels of capital stocks in...

We analyze the pattern of growth of a nation which borrows abroad and which has the option of repudiating its foreign debt. We show that the equilibrium strategy of competitive lenders is to make the growth of the foreign debt contingent on the growth of the borrowing country. We give a...

Econometric evidence suggests that the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (the NAIRU) has risen sharply in Europe in the past fifteen years. In the first section of this paper, I review the recent proliferation of supply-side models that say interesting things about why the NAIRU...